I cringe every time I see a patient for a breast lift who is a smoker. I’m deathly afraid that despite my warnings, she will smoke before or after surgery and cause her nipples to turn black and fall off.

Yes. Smokers who undergo breast lifts are at great risk of losing their nipples.

I’ve seen it before.

Found by Mr. Kevin

A Miami Gardens transgender woman is facing charges of practicing medicine without a license after police say she injected a patient’s rear with everything but the kitchen sink in an illegal cosmetic surgery procedure.

Oneal Ron Morris, 30, was arrested Friday after an investigation by Miami Gardens Police and the Florida Department of Health.

According to police, the victim saw Morris in May and was injected in her buttocks with a substance consisting of cement, “Fix a Flat,” mineral oil and super glue.

And beer bongs rectally as well, and lets not forget trying to get a buzz from ‘drinking’ Vodka through eyeballs.

Hundreds of people – including government officials and traditional leaders – have been coming to see how the walls are built in the round architectural shape popular in northern Nigeria.

The bottles, packed with sand, are placed on their side, one on top of the other and bound together with mud.

I guess I need to change my nom de blog from Uncle Dave to Parent 1 Sibling Dave to be PC. Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, though.

Traditional words ‘father’ and ‘mother’ will be replaced with official terms Parent 1 and Parent 2 in Britain reported the BBC and the Daily Mail. The terms will be used in official documents. The authorities decided to make such a “politically correct” move to accommodate same-sex couples. Experts are sure, though, that the matter is not about the requirements of certain social groups. The decision is another step towards the destruction of traditional families.
[...]
“Indeed, this is a serious international trend. It started back in the seventies and the eighties as a powerful movement to defend the rights of sexual minorities. There were organizations that tried to defend even the rights of pedophiles, who, as they believed, also had the rights for their own sexual preferences.
[...]
European officials already try to avoid the use of the word ‘family’ in top-level international documents. Instead, they use “family in all of its forms” expression, which implies all forms of cohabitation.

In Japan, crooked teeth are sometimes a sign that you might have ¥30,000 to spare.

Tourists come to Asia from all over the world to take advantage of affordable and top-quality cosmetic and plastic surgery procedures. But in what could be a new fad in Japan has us wondering how many people will be flying in for supplemental dental work that promises to make teeth appear crooked.

Perhaps your folks spent thousands on fixing your wonky teeth all those years ago. But chances are, if you were born in Japan, it was more like zero — the lack of orthodontists is one reason why having a mouth full of straight teeth isn’t such a big deal here. In fact, in some circles that goofy look is downright desirable, which leads us to the news that a Ginza-based dental clinic has just started supplying fake crooked teeth to those blessed with more traditionally “beautiful” pearly whites.

Some news on the job-creation front in Florida.

A state legislator has found yet another example of government regulation getting in the way of job creation.

So Rep. Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne, filed a bill this week to bring back “dwarf tossing,” the barbaric and dangerous barroom spectacle that was imported from Australia and thrived briefly in Florida before it was outlawed in 1989.

“I’m on a quest to seek and destroy unnecessary burdens on the freedom and liberties of people,” Workman said. “This is an example of Big Brother government.

“All that it does is prevent some dwarfs from getting jobs they would be happy to get,” Workman said. “In this economy, or any economy, why would we want to prevent people from getting gainful employment?”

Yes, the viral government-kills-jobs theme is being repackaged into what might be called a Leave No Tossed Dwarf Behind bill.

It sounds like something in a horror film, but some people believe it happens. It’s also what an Irish coroner recently concluded about the death of Michael Faherty, a 76-year-old Irishman who burned to death in his home in December 2010. There were scorch marks above and below the body, but no evidence of any gasoline, kerosene, or other accelerant. The coroner, Ciaran McLoughlin, reported: “This fire was thoroughly investigated and I’m left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation.”

Imagine tapping into the mind of a coma patient, or watching one’s own dream on YouTube. With a cutting-edge blend of brain imaging and computer simulation, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are bringing these futuristic scenarios within reach.

Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models, UC Berkeley researchers have succeeded in decoding and reconstructing people’s dynamic visual experiences – in this case, watching Hollywood movie trailers.

As yet, the technology can only reconstruct movie clips people have already viewed. However, the breakthrough paves the way for reproducing the movies inside our heads that no one else sees, such as dreams and memories, according to researchers.

“This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery,” said Professor Jack Gallant, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor of the study published online today (Sept. 22) in the journal Current Biology. “We are opening a window into the movies in our minds.”

Eventually, practical applications of the technology could include a better understanding of what goes on in the minds of people who cannot communicate verbally, such as stroke victims, coma patients and people with neurodegenerative diseases.

And if you dream of doing ____, the pre-crime police can lock you up? Guess this means the tin foil hat folks are just ahead of their time.

For those of you too young to understand the dream police and Cheap Trick reference, click here.

Ain’t technology great? What’s the weirdest app you’ve got, heard of, wish existed?

As a tech writer, I get pitched a lot of bizarre, head-scratch-inducing apps. But this afternoon, I received what is perhaps the strangest one yet: An app that uses the iPhone’s microphone to detect whether or not a watermelon is ripe when you knock against it.

Yes, it’s a watermelon ripeness detection app, and it is available now in the app store. No, this is not a joke (as far as we can tell, anyway), and yes, it costs $2. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to knock the ever-loving pulp out of your watermelon while holding your iPhone next to it, because the Melon Meter is here. (Note: Android version not available).

After you’ve downloaded Melon Meter and reexamined your life and very existence, you are ready to use the Melon Meter. The app first takes you into a Melon Meter tutorial before it allows you to use the meter, because God forbid someone use this thing incorrectly.

After 2 years of research and development [editor's note: Two years?!?!], we have developed a tool that will help you find the most ready to eat melon in the store. This tool, or software algorithm, allows the iPhone to analyze the decay rate (the time it takes for a sound to end) of the signal produced by thumping a melon. We have determined that “ready” melons have a unique “decay signature.” Melon Meter analyzes the sound, and tells you if you have found a melon with the “decay signature” that corresponds to a “ready” melon.