California woman to show off newly transplanted hand

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20055225-10391704.html?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.2

An amazing thing happened on March 5th, 2011. Dr. Kodi Azari and his surgical team performmed a full hand transplant at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in L.A. A 26 year old mother had had her right hand taken away from her in a very terrible traffic accident nearly 5 years ago. She will attend a press conference with her doctors to show off her newly transplanted "donor hand". This California mother got the limb in March after a 14-plus hour operation performed by a team of almost 20 surgeons, nurses and support staff. The hand was from a deceased donor, they gave to the woman by painstakingly connecting bones, blood vessels, nerves and tendons. This was the 13th hand transplant in the U.S. and also is the first for this hospital. She was able to wiggle her fingers shortly after the surgery. She will have to attend months of rehab and must take drugs for the rest of her life.This operation cost about $800,000, but it was experimental so the patient did not have to pay. Dr. Linda Cendales says, "They will never have a normal hand, but they do recover enough sensation to differentiate between temperatures, and rough and smooth surfaces."

 

 This is a true miracle. Its amazing how advanced technology and stuff like that has become for us to be able to completely transplant a whole hand. Imagine loosing a body part like that and not being able to do simple things like holds hand with someone or brush your teeth or just to scratch an  itch. I couldn't imagine loosing a body part, let alone getting the chance to start all over with a new one. Even though it would never be the same again, I would still prefer to get a new hand over living with out it. We, as a human race, have overcome so many really great feats. And we are only getting closer to some even bigger ones. I'm excited to see what the future technology will bring to us in the following years.

Bath Salts used to get "intoxicated"

http://www.klkntv.com/story/14512255/some-use-bath-salts-to-get-high
I know everyone has heard of K2, the incense used as a replacement for marijuana. It had some very bad effects on its users, but a new synthetic drug is out there and it looks like a bath salt. These bath salts with the names; Ivory Wave, Could 9, White Dove, and Vanilla Sky are just a couple out of many of these harmful substances sold in stores to anyone who wants them. These are known as "legal cocaine" or "legal speed". "It has a similar effect, some say to meth, some say cocaine, and some ever say its hallucinogenic like LSD. It seems to cause different effects on different people." says Jerome Barry with the Substance Abuse Services. These are not like regular bath salts, these include an ingredient, which is structurally related to amphetamines such as ecstacy. They can have a lasting effect that could last longer than 24 hours and experts are saying they can be very deadly.Some symptoms include increased heart rate, hypertention, agitation, paranoia, and confusion. Barry says, "It just seems like manufacturers, chemists, and dealers are constantly staying on the sutting edge trying to keep it away from being illegal by the way they manufature and label it."It is clearly labeled "not for human consupmtion" but people continue to snort, inject, smoke, or injest these harmful "bath salts".

The uses of these regular household items to get "high" is just one example of how drug dependent people are in this country. It seems Americans will to anything to get that feeling they love so much. They are using marijuana substitutes and now this "bath salt". What is this world coming to? Studies shows that nationwide, 1,782 calls have been made to poison control centers about this designer drugs labeled "bath salt" during the first 4 months of 2011, compared to the 302 calls made the whole year of 2010. People who use these fake drugs are stupid. These substances are made of some very harmful chemicals, and just because they get you high doesn't mean they are "good" things you should continue to use. I advise anyone not to use any of these things. Along with other drugs, they are extremely harmful and can cause death. Its the younger public that are attracted to these interesting looking "drug". Most bath salt userrs are young adults from their 20's to 30's. Emergency rooms across the country have seen patients on bath salts that are agitated and psychotic, that can’t be calmed with regular doses of sedatives. These drugs, along with similar drugs, will most likely be made illegal in the near future. Almost everywhere I looked for information about these terrible drugs, they all told stories of people gone psychotic and told of deaths caused by these drugs. This needs to get taken care of.

Students asked to out public schools that block pro-gay sites

http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2011/04/11/6452553-students-asked-to-out-public-schools-that-block-pro-gay-sites

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wants to know what schools are blocking that pro-gay sites, but allowing anti-gay sites. This article is all about schools that have been found to have these sites blocked and the others unblocked because of their own personal prejudices. "There is no legitimate reason why any public school should be using an anti-LGBT filter," Joshua Block, staff attorney at the ACLU LGBT, said in a statement. LGBT is the “lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender” group of people. Blocking LGBT sites from public school internet is against both the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act. The Equal Access Act requires equal access to school resources for ALL extracurricular activities or clubs. The filters are used to discriminate and made to specifically target the kids of the LGBT. All related content wouldn’t otherwise be blocked as explicit or inappropriate. When searching for scholarship information involved in LGBT on a school computer, they were surprised to find out that the sites were all blocked. The student was though able to access sites like “pray the away the gay” websites that all said that homosexuality can be “cured” or “overcome”  through religious worship. On Monday, the ACLU said to have sent letters to schools in Michigan, Texas, Pennsylvania and Virginia. These letters were demanding that they stop all the viewpoint-based censorship of web content pointed towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender communities. A school in New Jersey removed its anti-LGBT filters voluntarily after getting some complaints fron students. The ACLU provided a form with online sites to check for in schools. Participants are asked to visit the websites from a school computer and fill out a survey to figure out which schools are blocking which sites. And to try to get these sites unblocked in all schools.

I believe the schools that are blocking these sites out of straight fear of gays. People are homophobic. Most people you talk to about this, probably wouldn’t even listen. That is just the way people are now. Our generations just keep getting worse and worse. Schools shouldn’t block those sites. Its valuable information that any person could learn from. If people would just realize that being gay or lesbian or whatever you are, doesn’t mean you have a disease. That is how people act towards gay people. They think they are gross and scary. They are people looking for love just like any other person. Gays are looked at in all the wrong ways in society. They are called names and glared at , just for walking down the street or going in public with their lover or significant other. I believe that this needs to end. There is nothing wrong with being gay. Love is love, no matter the genders involved. Gays should be treated equally, just like any non-gay person would be treated. I have gay friends and family and I am more than okay with them being that way. If that is what makes them happy then why frown upon them for it. Many suicides are caused from “bullying” of gays and lesbians and bisexuals and transgenders. It is said that about 30% percent of all teen suicides are gay teens. That’s sad. That could all be avoided, if only people would just accept them as they were. And not try to change or alter their ways of life.

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Facebook and Depression

Could "Facebook depression" affect you?
This article is about how they think the social networking site, Facebook, is affecting many teenagers. The site shows those teens who claim to be 'depressed' all their peers in photos and status updates. Many of these updates are about how happy they are or how much fun something is. Facebook pages can make some kids feel even worse if they think they aren't as "cool" as others. Some people say that Facebook might "infect" their child with this depression.

I think this article could be correct or wrong. I mean, yes some kids look at Facebook and realize that other peoples lives may seem better than theirs. But, this isn't always true. Just because someone posts something happy or good on their page doesn't exactly mean that that is how they really feel. They may be just covering up some other feelings that they do not want others to know about. Social networking sites are often used, as i think, to "brag" or "complain" about the good and bad things in their lives. A lot of things that people post aren't always the truth. It may be partially true, but not everyone posts the truth on Facebook. Because a lot of people don't want people to know the truth.