Sundance Channel

Today is World AIDS Day

Em and Lo — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:00:26 +0000

Today marks "the beginning of the end of AIDS":

"Getting to Zero" is the theme of the UNAIDS efforts (the joint United Nations program on AIDS/HIV).
Bono was on The Daily Show last night promoting his activist organization, One, and his fundraising one, Red.
Add a patch to the One and Red campaigns' 2015 Quilt, pledging to buy at least one Red gift this holiday season, and you'll get to choose one of The Killers six consecutive Christmas songs benefiting Red for free.

A new dating site for people who can’t have intercourse

Em and Lo — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:00:41 +0000

In contrast to the above post title, the title of the Time article we just read is "A New Dating Site for People Who Can't Have Sex." These are two very different things: you can have sex without having intercourse (hello, oral, manual, frottage, etc.), but if you can't have sex then that implies you can't do anything sexual. We thought this new dating site, 2date4love, was for people who can't or don't want to have any (or much) sex, be it because of illness, faulty equipment, low libido, asexuality, age, past trauma, religious reasons or whatever. But it turns out the site is targeted at people who can't have intercourse (says so right on the homepage).

STOVEMAN: Bringing clean cook stoves to the developing world

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:41:41 +0000

Episode 1: Woodwalk from The Paradigm Project on Vimeo.

You may consider cooking a necessity, or maybe even a hobby... but probably not a health risk. For over two billion people in the developing world that still cook over open fires, though, cooking is hazardous: not only is it responsible for millions of deaths from lower respiratory disease, but it's also a contributor to deforestation (and subsequent degradation of land quality). Additionally, in wood-poor regions, it's a practice that requires a lot of time... women may spend most of one day collecting cooking wood that will last for only two days.

Love hurts…but sometimes sex hurts more

Em and Lo — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:00:48 +0000

For the past few weeks we've been talking about sex that hurts -- and not in a heartache kind of way. Two weeks ago we published an excerpt from When Sex Hurts: A Woman's Guide to Banishing Sexual Pain. Then last week we published a basic overview of the causes of painful sex. So many women still don't admit to having this problem -- they may write in to an anonymous advice column like ours, but they won't necessarily admit it to their gynecologist. Today we present a Q&A with Dr. Caroline Pukall and Dr. Andrew Goldstein, coauthors of When Sex Hurts, addressing some of the most common questions they hear about painful sex. What is the most common cause of sexual pain? There are many causes of sexual pain, the most common being vestibulodynia, the most common type of vulvodynia, which is chronic vulvar pain which has no known cause. Vestibulodynia is characterized by a severe burning pain at the entrance of the vagina during activities that involve vaginal penetration; the most common complaint of women with this condition is dyspareunia -- pain during sexual intercourse. Women with vestibulodynia may also have pain during nonsexual activities, such as gynecological examinations.

What’s up with all the organic food recalls?

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:30:54 +0000

Organic food's supposed to be safer than produce, meat, and dairy raised by conventional methods... right? Organic growers and ranchers are no doubt dealing with that question regularly over the past couple of weeks: between recalls of salmonella-contaminated sprouts and ground beef possibly laced with E. coli, it's likely many are questioning the value of organics.

Fighting that beer belly with… beer

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:59:16 +0000

The discussion surrounding the obesity epidemic has centered on dietary norms, school lunches, processed foods, and agricultural subsidies. Beer drinking hasn’t received a ton of attention in this discussion, but if a student at Denver’s Regis University has his way, the battle against the beer gut may be waged with an intriguing weapon… more beer. [...]

Green hip hop vs. the plastic bag

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:18:19 +0000

Let's face it: an awful lot of environmental activism leans towards the stern and dour side. Getting artists involved (particularly as artists, not spokespeople) can shake that up... and even add an element of fun to a serious message. That's the approach non-profit Green Sangha took to its Rethinking Plastics campaign. Yes, the campaign page has all sorts of good scientific information on the costs of single-use plastic shopping bags, but to make the message a bit more catchy, they also produced a hip hop video featuring socially conscious artists AshEl Eldridge and Jenni Perez. The information here is also solid: "Plastic State of Mind" ties in everything from litter to the BP Oil Spill to dioxins in breast milk into its rap. The ultimate message: ban the bag.

A new vibe to save the ta-tas

Em and Lo — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:00:40 +0000

Remember all that pink last month? October was National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t keep supporting the cause now that it’s November. Evolved manufactured a new little powerful vibe that’s waterproof and multi-speed called Faith, and a portion of all sales go to the Save the Ta-Ta’s Foundation. [...]

Emergency Bras at the 20th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony

Em and Lo — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 17:00:09 +0000

The 20th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, which honors achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think,” was held Harvard University last Thursday. On hand to help honor the 2010 prize laureates was Dr. Elana Bodnar, last year’s winner of the Ig Nobel Public Health Prize for her Emergency Bra, a [...]

National school lunch program comes to the big screen

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:30:14 +0000

LUNCH: THE FILM may sound like a spoof of some kind, but filmmaker Avis Gold Richards, and her team at Birds Nest Productions couldn't be more serious about their exploration of the National School Lunch Program, and its potential connections to childhood obesity, and the illnesses related to it.

Fewer E.D. ads! New teen-focused recommendations for this sex-soaked culture

Em and Lo — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:00:19 +0000

Teens now spend a whopping seven hours per day on various forms of media. So the American Academy of Pediatrics just issued a revised policy statement, “Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media,” in the September 2010 print issue of Pediatrics (published online Aug. 30). In addition to calling for the creation of a national task force on children, adolescents and the media to be convened by child advocacy groups in conjunction with the CDC or National Institutes of Health, it includes updated recommendations for pediatricians and parents on how to deal with this sex-soaked culture. Among the new recommendations since 2001:

The new abortion providers

Em and Lo — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:00:28 +0000

Dr. Emily Godfrey is our new hero: she had the courage to be featured on the cover of the NYTimes Sunday Magazine last weekend as a doctor willing to provide abortions, not in an abortion clinic but at her practice where she sees all sorts of patients. In case you missed it last weekend, the article titled "The New Abortion Providers" took a fascinating look at the movement to bring this safe, common and legal medical procedure back into hospitals where it's less vulnerable to attack by anti-choice zealots:

New study says fetuses don’t feel pain before 24 weeks

Em and Lo — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:00:17 +0000

A report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which was commissioned by the UK's Department of Health, has found that fetuses don't feel pain before 24 weeks (and probably not after for some time) for two reasons: 1) the brain is not formed enough to perceive pain, and 2) the fetus is unconscious.

One woman’s tale of dying to give birth

Em and Lo — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:00:17 +0000

It’s reasonable to assume that, in this day and age of technological advances and common knowledge about good health, maternal mortality rates should be next to nil. But even in the United States, one of the richest countries in the world, it’s up at 13.3 deaths per 100,000 live births (in 2006), an increase from [...]

The 50th anniversary of The Pill

Em and Lo — Fri, 07 May 2010 17:00:26 +0000

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Pill, and there's been some interesting coverage of it by the media. Margaret Marsh, one of the first researchers granted access to the personal letters of the Pill's co-developer, John Rock, discusses his Catholicism, among other Pill tidbits.

First ob/gyn to sell sex toys to patients

Em and Lo — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 20:00:59 +0000

The two of us were just discussing the other day how some ob/gyns totally get that reproduction has something to do with sex and some just don't. Ask one about Kegels, and she'll happily stick in a gloved hand to see if you should be doing more of them; ask another, and she'll look at you as if you've just asked about the mating habits of emperor penguins. Which is why it's kinda cool to hear about Dr. Andrew Scheinfeld, the first American ob/gyn to sell sex toys out of his practice. (He's based in Manhattan, not Peoria, natch.) The bad news: they're not covered by insurance...at least not yet.

It’s National STD Awareness Month

Em and Lo — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:00:39 +0000

This is just a friendly neighborhood reminder that April is National STD Awareness Month. Yes, if you’re having sex, you’ve still got to worry about those pesky little infections. As many as one in two sexually active young people will contract an STD by age 25. Young women, in particular, disproportionately bear the burden of [...]

How Consumer Reports tests condoms

Em and Lo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:00:03 +0000

Consumer Reports recently tested a whopping 15,000 condoms (bought by one dude!) representing 20 models. Alas, there was no actual-use testing done in the lab on the slab, just the boring scientific stuff: packaging examination, stretching, measuring, filling them with liquid to check for leaks, and inflating them with air to the size of 5-gallon [...]

What you need to know about the Stupak Amendment

Em and Lo — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:00:56 +0000

photo by cliff1066™ There’s been a lot of self-congratulatory back-patting around the House’s passing of the Health Reform Bill this past Saturday — but it’s come at a huge price. The Democratic Congress pretty much abandoned women’s reproductive rights by including the last-minute Stupak-Pitts Amendment to appease some religio-conservative members of Congress, including several male [...]

It’s Sexual Health Week in Australia

Em and Lo — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:00:39 +0000

Australia kicked off its first ever Sexual Health Week yesterday (running through the 15th) to promote condoms, STI tests, birth control, etc. (To paraphrase Paul Hogan, now that’s a fight!) As part of the project, a survey was conducted showing that nearly all adult Australians taking part in the study have had unprotected sex, but only [...]

In sleep vs. sex battle, the winner is…mattresses, pills and PDAs

Em and Lo — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:00:57 +0000

photo by audreyjm529 It seems like every few years, someone comes out with a study about what percentage of the population would choose a good night's sleep over sex. The studies are usually sponsored by a mattress company, or a pharmaceutical firm developing non-addictive (riiiiight) sleeping pills, or -- as in the most recent case -- a chain of hotels with extremely comfortable beds. The study, funded by Westin Hotels, found that 51% of Americans surveyed would choose sleep over sex (as we mentioned here earlier this week). It sounds much less depressing if you put it the other way: 49% of us would still sacrifice sleep for a bit of raucous boot-knocking, aw yeah. But it sounds much more depressing when you learn that a decade ago, a massive 69% (heh) of those surveyed said they'd choose sex over sleep.

Congress takes another shot at No Child Left Inside

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:53:51 +0000

Richard Louv's 2005 book Last Child in the Woods introduced the phrase "nature deficit disorder" into our lexicon. Louv argued that kids spend much less time outdoors, and, as a result, not only fail to develop an appreciation for and connection to nature (and, by extension, the importance of environmental challenges), but also suffer from health problems such as obesity, attention deficit disorder, and even depression to a greater degree.

Dr. George Tiller in doc “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”

Em and Lo — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:00:29 +0000

Salon.com has an extended scene from forthcoming documentary "What's the Matter With Kansas?", based on Thomas Frank's bestselling book of the same title about the Right Wing's rise in the once-liberal state. It features Dr. George Tiller, the Wichita-based abortion provider who was gunned down last Sunday while attending church. The clip touches on the years of threats and abuse Tiller experienced -- law suits, arson, death threats, failed assassination attempts -- for his commitment to providing women with safe and legal reproductive care. When Tiller speaks, he seems exhausted yet resigned to defending women's rights against these radicals. It's tragic. After the jump, a round-up of interesting articles and info on Dr. Tiller and reproductive rights in the wake of his murder...

Bike to work for health, savings, and cleaner air

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:55:24 +0000

The League of American Bicyclists has declared May 11 - 15 "Bike to Work Week," and published a nine-page bike commuter guide for those of us who may still think that riding in traffic is a good way to get killed. Among the benefits of bicycle commuting: Health: No need to worry about making time for the gym: "Ride your bike to work, and you no longer need to make time to exercise."

Tantus is a Titan among sex toys

Em and Lo — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:00:49 +0000

photo: Delta Vibrator from Tantus We’re big proponents of high quality sex toys made from body-safe materials, which is why we’ve always been big fans of Tantus — they’re a relatively small American manufacturer of 100% medical grade silicone toys. They recently sent out this training video to their retailers in order to help sales [...]

Will the HPV vaccine for boys make them sluts? Ha!

Em and Lo — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:00:14 +0000

photo by zmxncbv.com When the relatively new HPV vaccine Gardasil came on the market for girls a few years ago, conservatives got their panties all in a bind over the possibility that it would give sweet, innocent P.Y.T.s permission to do it. Now that the vaccine is being considered for boys, no one seems too [...]