Who Goes Next: Portugal Or Slovenia - The Forensic Take -

Who Goes Next: Portugal Or Slovenia - The Forensic Take - 


The troubles in Cyprus have set off a new examination of the health of the eurozone, with a particular focus on which country might be next in line for a bailout and the extent to which shareholders and depositors will take losses when banks fail (bail-ins). As UK think-tank, OpenEurope notes, much of the attention has settled on two countries. Portugal, which has been propelled back into the headlines, with the country’s constitutional court recently ruling against some of the government’s EU-mandated budget cuts. Secondly, Slovenia, which is facing a massive banking crisis, in turn providing another potential testing ground for the eurozone’s vaguely defined ‘bail-in’ plans. OpenEurope provides a quick run-down of the key points to watch in each country.



Portugal




Domestic demand, government spending and investment are contracting sharply, leaving the country heavily reliant on uncertain export growth to drive the economy.
By cutting wages and costs at home (internal devaluation), Portugal has in recent years improved its level of competitiveness in the eurozone relative to Germany. However, this trend actually started to reverse sharply in 2012, meaning that the divergence between countries such as Portugal and Germany has begun growing again – exactly the sort of imbalance the eurozone is seeking to close.
In its austerity efforts, Portugal is now coming up against serious political and constitutional limits. For the second time, the country’s constitutional court has ruled against public sector wage cuts – a key plank in the country’s EU-mandated austerity plan – while the previous political consensus in the parliament for austerity has evaporated.
In combination, it will be increasingly difficult for Portugal to sell austerity at home and consequently to negotiate its bailout terms with creditor countries abroad.
Portugal may well need some further financial assistance before long. It is unlikely to take the form of a full second bailout, but could involve use of the ECB’s OMT, assuming Portugal can return to the markets fully beforehand (even briefly).


Slovenia


Slovenia is not Cyprus – in fact it is much more like Spain. Its banks are significantly undercapitalised with toxic loans now standing at 18% of GDP. Banks only have provisions to cover less than half the potential losses resulting from these loans.
At the same time, a heavily indebted private sector is now desperately trying to get debt off its books, which alongside continued austerity and lack of investment, have caused growth to plummet.
Though a full bailout is unlikely, the country could soon need an EU rescue package worth between €1 billion and €4 billion (between 3% and 11% of GDP) to help restructure the country’s bust and mismanaged banks.
Such a plan is likely to include losses for shareholder (bail-ins) but, unlike in Cyprus, it may not hit large (uninsured) depositors and there will be no attempt whatsoever at taxing smaller (insured) depositors.

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-11/who-goes-next-portugal-or-slovenia-forensic-take

Bras Make Breasts "Saggier", 15-year French Study Reveals -

Bras Make Breasts "Saggier", 15-year French Study Reveals - 


Women have long been told that a good bra can help support the chest, relieve back pain and prevent sagging.  However, a new 15-year French study reveals the opposite: bras do little to reduce back pain and, over time, they can actually make breasts sag even more.
Researcher Prof. Jean-Denis Rouillon, a sports science expert from the University of Besançon in eastern France claims that "bras are a false necessity," according to The Local.

"Medically, physiologically, anatomically - breasts gain no benefit from being denied gravity," said Rouillon. "On the contrary, they get saggier with a bra."
Rouillon and his team spent years measuring the changes in the breasts of 330 women using a simple slide rule and caliper at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (University Hospital) in Besançon, where he carried out his research.
He found that no evidence that bras helped ease back pain. Instead, he found that the chest supports could even add to the problem.
According to The Connexion, the findings suggest that breasts would gain more tone and support themselves if no bra was used.  Researchers explain that bras limit the growth of supporting breast tissues, leaving the breast to wither and degrade more quickly.
The study found that women who took off their bras for good experienced a 7mm lift in their nipples each year they didn't wear a bra.  Researchers also found that bra-less women developed firmer breasts and saw their stretch marks fade.
Some of the women who took part in Rouillon's study told France Info that not wearing a bra helped ease their back pains.
Capucine, a 28-year-old participant in Rouillon's study, swears by the results and hasn't worn a bra for two years.
"There are multiple benefits: I breathe more easily, I carry myself better, and I have less back pain," Capucine said, according to France Info.
However, Rouillon says the findings do not mean all women should throw away their bras.
"It would be dangerous to advise all women to stop wearing their soutien-gorge as the women involved were not a representative sample of the population," Rouillon said, according to The Connexion.
While his initial results "validated the hypothesis that the bra is a false 'need'," he says that women who have been wearing bras for a long time would not gain any benefit from stopping now.

Read more -

http://www.counselheal.com/articles/4852/20130411/bras-make-breasts-saggier-15-year-french-study-reveals.htm

Barbie Chihuahua: New Mexican Barbie Carries Passport, Sparks Outrage -

Barbie Chihuahua: New Mexican Barbie Carries Passport, Sparks Outrage - 


A new Mexican Barbie in Mattel’s “Dolls of the World” series has sparked outrage for what opponents argue is an offensive depiction of Mexican culture.

According to Fox News Latino, the new line of Barbie dolls was launched to appeal to a more “diverse generation” of customers and boasts a number of dolls from Latin America. But the Mexican Barbie, its newest addition, sparked a particular backlash when journalist Laura Martinez mocked it on her blog, writing, “The folks over at Mattel are so smart, that not only they have come up with a Mexican Barbie, but they have given her all the possible tools to go around the U.S. the world undisturbed [sic].”

By “tools,” Martinez was referring not to the Barbie’s fiesta dress and pet Chihuahua, but more specifically, to the passport and sticker sheet she came with. “It is not for me to inform you about the ‘play value’ that a passport provides, so go ahead! Play with your Barbie Mexicana and don’t even think of calling her indocumentada,” Martinez wrote.

Read more -

http://www.ibtimes.com/barbie-chihuahua-new-mexican-dolls-world-barbie-carries-passport-sparks-outrage-1186077

Why Are The Banksters Telling Us To Sell Our Gold When They Are Hoarding Gold Like Crazy? -

Why Are The Banksters Telling Us To Sell Our Gold When They Are Hoarding Gold Like Crazy? - 


The big banks are breathlessly proclaiming that now is the time to sell your gold.  They are warning that we have now entered a “bear market” for gold and that the price of gold will continue to decline for the rest of the year.  So should we believe them?  Well, their warnings might be more credible if the central banks of the world were not hoarding gold like crazy.  During 2012, central bank gold buying was at the highest level that we have seen in almost 50 years.  Meanwhile, insider buying of gold stocks has now reached multi-year highs and the U.S. Mint cannot even keep up with the insatiable demand for silver eagle coins.  So what in the world is actually going on here?  Right now, the central banks of the world are indulging in a money printing binge that reminds many of what happened during the early days of the Weimar Republic.  When you flood the financial system with paper money, that is eventually going to cause the prices for hard assets to go up dramatically.  Could it be possible that the banksters are trying to drive down the price of both gold and silver so that they can gobble it up cheaply?  Do they want to be the ones sitting on all of the “real money” once the paper money bubble that we are living in finally bursts?

Over the past few weeks, nearly every major newspaper in the world has run at least one story telling people that it is time to sell their gold.  For example, the following is from a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled “Goldman Sachs Turns Bearish on Gold“…

Another longtime gold bull is turning tail.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Wednesday that gold’s prospects for the year have eroded, recommending investors close out long positions and initiate bearish bets, or shorts. The shift in outlook was the latest among banks and investors who have soured on gold as its dozen-year runup has been followed by a 12% decline in the last six months.

Goldman began the year predicting gold would decline in the second half of 2013, but said Wednesday the drop began earlier than expected and doesn’t appear likely to reverse. Like others, the firm said the usual catalysts that have been bullish for gold during its run are no longer working.

Major banks over in Europe are issuing similar warnings about the price of gold.  The following is from a Marketwatch article entitled “Sell gold, buy oil, Societe Generale analysts say“…

Analysts at Societe Generale predict in a note Thursday that gold prices will fall below $1,400 by the year’s end and continue heading south next year.

They cite two main reasons:

1.  Inflation has so far stayed low and now investors are beginning to see economic conditions that would justify an end to the Fed’s quantitative easing program.
2.  The dollar has started trending higher, which should make gold prices move lower as the physical gold market is extremely oversupplied without continued large-scale investor buying.

And even Asian banks are telling people to sell their gold at this point.  According to CNBC, Japanese banking giant Nomura is another major international bank that has turned “bearish” on gold…

Nomura forecast gold prices will fall in 2013, on Thursday, becoming the latest bank to turn bearish on the precious metal which has been a favorite hedge for investors who fear aggressive monetary stimulus will lead to rising inflation.

“For the first time since 2008, in our view, the investment environment for gold is deteriorating as economic recovery, rising interest rates and still benign Western inflation (for now) will likely leave some investors rethinking their cumulative $240 billion investment in gold over the past four years,” wrote Nomura analysts in a sector note on Thursday.

A lot of financial analysts are urging people to dump gold and to jump into stocks where they “can get a much better return”.  They make it sound like it is only going to be downhill for gold from here.  The following is from a recent CNBC article entitled “Gold’s ‘Death Cross’ Isn’t All Investors Are Worried About“…

Gold is flashing the “death cross” but the bearish chart pattern is not the only thing scaring investors.

The magnetic appeal of a rising stock market has pulled some investment funds away from the yellow metal. Since the beginning of the year, stocks are up nearly 7 percent and gold is down nearly 6 percent.

But if gold is such a bad investment, then why are the central banks of the world hoarding gold like crazy?

According to the World Gold Council, gold buying by global central banks in 2012 was at the highest level that we have seen since 1964…

Worldwide gold demand in 2012 was another record high of $236.4 billion in the World Gold Council’s latest report. This was up 6% in value terms in the fourth quarter to $66.2 billion, the highest fourth quarter on record. Global gold demand in the fourth quarter of 2012 was up 4% to 1,195.9 tonnes.

Central bank buying for 2012 rose by 17% over 2011 to some 534.6 tonnes. As far as central bank gold buying, this was the highest level since 1964. Central bank purchases stood at 145 tonnes in the fourth quarter. That is up 9% from the fourth quarter of 2011, and the eighth consecutive quarter in which central banks were net purchasers of gold.

This all comes on the heels of decades when global central banks were net sellers of gold.  Marcus Grubb, a Managing Director at the World Gold Council, says that we are witnessing a fundamental change in behavior by global central banks…

Central banks’ move from net sellers of gold, to net buyers that we have seen in recent years, has continued apace.  The official sector purchases across the world are now at their highest level for almost half a century.

Meanwhile, insiders seem to think that gold stocks are actually quite undervalued right now.  In fact, insider buying of gold stocks is now at a level that we have not seen in quite some time.  The following is an excerpt from a recent Globe and Mail article entitled “Insider buying of gold stocks surges to multi-year highs“…

The TSX global gold index has lost about a third of its value over the past two years. The S&P/TSX Venture Exchange, stock full of gold mining juniors, hit a multi-year low this month.

Yet, executives and officers who work within those businesses are showing remarkable confidence that the sector is poised for better times.

In addition, the demand for physical silver in the United States seems to be greater than ever before.  According to the U.S. Mint, demand for physical silver coins hit a new all-time record highduring the month of February.

And demand for silver coins has not abated since then.  Just check out what has been happening in April so far…

The US Mint has updated April sales statistics for the first time since last week, and to no surprise, the Mint again reported more massive sales, with another 833,000 silver eagles reported sold Monday!   The April total through 6 business days is now 1.645 million ounces, bringing the 2013 total to a massive 15.868 million ounces.  In response to the continued massive demand for silver eagles, the mint also has begun rationing sales of silver eagles to primary dealers resulting in supply delays!  Just as was seen in January, tight physical supplies have seen premiums on ASE’s skyrocketing over the weekend and throughout the day, as ASE’s are rapidly becoming as scarce as 90%!

Something does not appear to add up here.

I also found it very interesting that according to Reuters, Cyprus is being forced to sell most of their gold reserves in order to help fund the bailout of their banking system…

Cyprus has agreed to sell excess gold reserves to raise around 400 million euros (341 million pounds) and help finance its part of its bailout, an assessment of Cypriot financing needs prepared by the European Commission showed.

So exactly who will they be selling that gold to?

And I also found it very interesting to learn that Comex gold inventories have been falling dramatically over the last few months.  The following is from a recent article by Tekoa Da Silva…

A stunning piece of information was brought to my attention yesterday. Amid all the mainstream talk of the end of the gold bull market (and the end of the gold mining industry), something has been discretely happening behind the scenes.

Over the last 90 days without any announcement,stocks of gold held at Comex warehousesplunged by the largest figure ever on record during a single quarter since eligible record keeping began in 2001 (roughly the beginning of the bull market).

In particular, something very unusual appears to be happening with JP Morgan Chase’s gold…

JP Morgan Chase’s reported gold stockpile dropped by over 1.2 million oz.’s, or rather, a staggering $1.8 billion dollars worth of physical gold was removed from it’s vaultsduring the last 120 days.

So what does all of this mean?

I don’t know.  But I would like to find out.  Someone is definitely up to something.

Meanwhile, the central banks of the globe seem determined to put their reckless money printing into overdrive.

For example, the Bank of Japan actually plans to double the monetary base of that country by the end of 2014 as a recentTime Magazine article described…

On Thursday, the new governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), Haruhiko Kuroda, announced that the central bank would double the monetary base of the country — adding an additional $1.4 trillion — by the end of 2014 in an attempt to end the deflation plaguing the economy. To achieve that, Kuroda will buy government bonds and other assets to inject cash into the economy — what has now become familiar as quantitative easing, or QE — to bump inflation up to a targeted 2%. The plan is part of a greater strategy ushered in by new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to restart the economy through massive fiscal and monetary stimulus. It also expands on the efforts by theFederal Reserve, Bank of England and European Central Bank to stimulate growth and smooth over financial turmoil by infusing huge sums of new money into the global economy.

Many in the western world have been extremely critical of this move, but the truth is that we actually started this “currency war”.  The Federal Reserve has been recklessly printing money for years, and even though we are now supposedly in the midst of an “economic recovery”, the Fed is actually doing more quantitative easing than ever.

Anyone that thinks that gold and silver are bad investments for the long-term when the central banks of the world are being so reckless should have their heads examined.

However, I do believe that gold and silver will experience wild fluctuations in price over the next several years.  When the next stock market crash happens, gold and silver will go down.  It happened back in 2008 and it will happen again.

But in response to the next major financial crisis, I believe that the central banks of the globe will become more reckless than anyone ever dreamed possible.  At that point I believe that we will see gold and silver soar to unprecedented heights.

Yes, there will be huge ups and downs for gold and silver.  But in the long-term, both gold and silver are going to go far, far higher than they are today.

So what do you think will happen to gold and silver in the years ahead?  Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below…

Read more - 

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/why-are-the-banksters-telling-us-to-sell-our-gold-when-they-are-hoarding-gold-like-crazy

BitCoin Drama Continues After Hours - After plunging by over 60% intraday -

BitCoin Drama Continues After Hours - After plunging by over 60% intraday - 


Think the great BitCoin drama is over? After plunging by over 60% intraday, touching $100 from an all time high of $265 earlier, BitCoin was just getting started, posting a just as epic rebound to $200 in mere hours... before tumbling once more to $125... before rebounding again to $180... before sliding to $140... and so on. As the vomit-inducing sequence above hints, merely following every twist and turn of the real time tragicomedy that is the minute chart of BTC is a full-time job. And with the bulk of assorted BTC price charts DDoSed into oblivion, or merely down due to record traffic, the only remaining real-time chart may be the following from Clark Moody: we suggest using 1 Minute resolution. Perhaps what is most fascinating, is that unlike regular stock, FX or commodity charts which are largely dominated by robots, algos and other electronic traders, the trading in BTC is purely carbon-form based. So for those who enjoy some seriously hypnotic after hours undulations, this chart's for you.

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-10/bitcoin-drama-continues-after-hours

Dinosaur embryos yield organic material in ‘mind boggling’ discovery by Canadian-led team -

Dinosaur embryos yield organic material in ‘mind boggling’ discovery by Canadian-led team - 


With the discovery of some of the oldest known fossilized dinosaur embryos, a Canadian-led research team has also found evidence of what may be preserved collagen — organic remains of an animal that lived in the early Jurassic, 190 million years ago.
Jurassic embryos do not a Jurassic Park make. For lead author Robert Reisz, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto Mississauga, the discovery is quite a bit better.
“People have focused on the great possibilities of DNA, which is much more delicate,” says Reisz. While DNA degrades quickly as bones become fossils, collagen lasts longer and has become a cutting-edge research tool for probing molecular links between species.
Preserved collagen was how another Canadian research team recently showed that a 3.5-million-year-old fossil found in the high Arctic belonged to an animal in the camel family.
The research is the cover story of this week’s issue of the prestigious journal Nature.
“This is really important fundamental baseline work that every subsequent study on dinosaur embryos is going to have to cite. That’s the most simple way of putting it,” said Royal Ontario Museum Vertebrate Paleontology Curator David Evans, who has worked with Reisz on previous dinosaur embryo research but was not involved in this study.
Timothy Huang of the National Chung Hsing University first discovered the fossil site in Yunnan province, southwest China. A chemist with a penchant for paleontology, he invited Reisz to come investigate.
After excavating one square metre of the bone bed, they uncovered 200 embryonic bones from a species called Lufengosaurus, dinosaurs from the long-necked prosauropod family.
The discovery was an exciting find for several reasons. First, the specimens are around 190 million years old, matching the age of another oldest-known set of dinosaur embryos found in South Africa. Embryonic material is a rare find to begin with, and much of what has been found dates to the Cretaceous, at least 125 million years younger than these fossils.
Secondly, the bone bed held fossils from several of different animals at various stages of embryonic development, rather than a single nest of several animals exactly the same age. That allowed Reisz’s team to show that, for example, Lufengosaurus femur bones doubled in size while still in the egg, a surprisingly quick growth rate.
But the most important discovery was of preserved complex proteins, probably collagen.
That find came almost by chance — Hwang, the chemist, wanted to test for it despite the odds. Researchers have found organic material in dinosaur fossils before, but always from large specimens like the T. Rex, says Reisz.
The discovery of preserved proteins in something as delicate and porous as an embryonic bone is “mind boggling,” says Reisz.
“I never would have even thought of looking for it.”
The next step is to try to find a way to extract the material, which would hypothetically allow researchers to extract a molecular fingerprint from it that can be matched to that of living species.
Reisz also wants to start looking for collagen in other fossils, embryonic or not.
“I suspect that if we start using this methodology elsewhere, we will find it more frequently than we think,” he says.

Read more - 

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/04/10/dinosaur_embryos_yield_organic_material_in_mind_boggling_discovery_by_canadianled_team.html

‘Amazing’ bedbug remedy stops insects in their tracks — without chemicals -

‘Amazing’ bedbug remedy stops insects in their tracks — without chemicals - 



Generations of Eastern European housewives doing battle against bedbugs spread bean leaves around the floor of an infested room at night. In the morning, the leaves would be covered with bedbugs that had somehow been trapped there. The leaves, and the pests, were collected and burned – by the pound, in extreme infestations.
Now a group of U.S. scientists is studying this bedbug-leaf interaction, with an eye to replicating nature’s Roach Motel.
A study to be published Wednesday in The Journal of the Royal Society Interface details the scientists’ quest, including their discovery of how the bugs get hooked on the leaves, how the scientists have tried to recreate these hooks synthetically and how their artificial hooks have proved to be less successful than the biological ones.

At first glance, the whole notion seems far-fetched, said Catherine Loudon, a biologist at the University of California, Irvine, who specializes in bedbug locomotion.
“If someone had suggested to me that impaling insects with little tiny hooks would be a valid form of pest control, I wouldn’t have given it credence,” she said in an interview. “You can think of lots of reasons why it wouldn’t work. That’s why it’s so amazing.”
But even though there is no indication that the bean leaves and the bedbugs evolved to work together, the leaves are fiendishly clever in exploiting the insects’ anatomy. Like the armour covering knights in medieval times, the bedbug’s exoskeleton has thinner areas where its legs flex and its tiny claws protrude – like the spot where a greave, or piece of leg armour, ends.
“The areas where they appear to be pierceable,” Loudon said, “are not the legs themselves. It’s where they bend, where it’s thin. That’s where they get pierced.”
This folk remedy from the Balkans was never entirely forgotten. A German entomologist wrote about it in 1927, a scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture mentioned it in a paper in 1943, and it can be found in Web searches about bedbugs and bean plants.
But the commercial availability of pesticides like DDT in the 1940s temporarily halted the legions of biting bugs. As their pesticide-resistant descendants began to multiply from Manhattan to Moscow, though, changing everything from leases to liability laws, the hunt for a solution was on.
The first task was to determine exactly how the hooks – the technical name is trichomes – worked. The process was viewed through an electron microscope, Loudon said.
“The foot comes down onto the surface, but as it’s lifting up, it’s catching on these hooks,” she said. “The point is pointing down. So all of their legs get impaled.”
“And as soon as one leg gets caught,” she added, “they are rapidly moving legs around and try to get away on the surface. That’s when they get multiply impaled.”

Read more -

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/04/10/amazing_bedbug_remedy_stops_insects_in_their_tracks_without_chemicals.html

The Bitcoin bubble: Why speculative Bitcoin buy-ins now point to a disastrous Bitcoin crash -

The Bitcoin bubble: Why speculative Bitcoin buy-ins now point to a disastrous Bitcoin crash - 


Bitcoin is a powerful, game-changing crypto currency that may literally change the world. It’s a huge threat to centralized banks and government currency controls because it’s entirely decentralized, anonymous and virtually impossible to track. Bitcoin is the “underground railroad” of money, and it has an important role to play in the epic battle between liberty vs. slavery.
But because bitcoin is a currency whose value is based on the psychology of human beings, it is subject to booms and busts. Bitcoin has enjoyed a meteoric rise from roughly $20 per bitcoin in February to almost $200 per bitcoin today. (Yes, nearly a 1000% return in less than two months.) This has happened for several reasons, but primarily because the Cypriot bank thefts taught people that “money in the bank” isn’t any safer than money anywhere else. So why not invest in a crypto-currency that can’t be stolen by the banks?
As Europeans and Russians were funneling unprecedented sums of money into bitcoin over the past few months, Asians began to dump speculative money into the system. Today, Chinese investors (i.e. “gamblers”) are pumping huge sums of cash into bitcoin, hoping to double or triple their money as the currency continues its red hot rise.
Therein lies the problem. Bitcoin has become a speculative bubble now driven primarily by greed and risk rather than utilitarian value. More and more people are getting into bitcoin for no other reason than to jump on the bandwagon and hope to “buy low, sell high.”
Check out the chart below, derived from data at BitCoinCharts.com. Look familiar? It mirrors the dot-com bubble charts of the late 1990′s:





Read more -

http://www.naturalnews.com/039830_bitcoin_bubble_crash.html

Origami Condoms Radically Redesigns Almost Century-Old Latex Protection -

Origami Condoms Radically Redesigns Almost Century-Old Latex Protection - 


Let's face it, for many people the classic latex condom is an unsensational product at best. And for nearly a century, no one really bothered to make that basic design any better.

But now a small business called Origami Condoms says it is ready to reinvent the condom and make it more appealing to use by taking a design tip from the Japanese art of paper folding. The secret? An accordion-like design.

"The latex condom was strictly protection. No one liked using it," Origami Condoms' creator and company founder, Danny Resnic, told The Huffington Post. "We are trying to create a condom that feels great and is much closer to the real deal to encourage people to use them."

Traditional condom makers have long been trying to make the existing condom design more appealing with textures and even flavors. But Origami Condoms' breakthrough style -- which has condoms folded up rather than rolled up like its predecessors -- acts as a loose-fitting sheath when it's in use and moves with the natural movement of the body. That means both participants will experience a lot more sensation during sex, Resnic said.

The company, which is based in Marina del Rey, Calif., has already snagged the attention of sexual health proponents as well as other major latex condom manufacturers who are interested in licensing the design, according to Resnic.

Last month the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation called out the new condom company as a leading innovator for sexual health on its blog. "Origami Condoms provides an excellent example of a private enterprise focused on new condom design to promote consistent use by emphasizing the sexual experience," the blog post reads.

The foundation is also offering $100,000 to innovators to redesign the condom as part of a campaign for global health initiatives.

But interested parties may still have to wait awhile to get their hands on these innovative rubbers. Origami's condoms are still in clinical testing and will not be available for purchase until early 2015 at the soonest, Resnic said. The condom designs must first go through rigorous multi-phase testing before the company can apply for approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Part of what makes the new design possible is its departure from latex, which is prone to breaking. Instead, Origami's condoms are made from super-supple silicone, which allows the condom to be folded rather than rolled and to withstand more vigorous movement without tearing.

Read more -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/origami-condoms_n_3020314.html?utm_hp_ref=canada&ir=Canada

Alysena 28 Recall: Birth Control Packs May Have Too Many Placebos -

Alysena 28 Recall: Birth Control Packs May Have Too Many Placebos -

The maker of the birth-control pill Alysena 28 has issued an urgent recall after it was discovered that one lot of the contraceptive may have been incorrectly packaged with only two weeks of drug-containing tablets instead of three.

Women taking the incorrectly packaged pill would not receive the proper amount of contraceptive, raising the possibility of an unplanned pregnancy.

In a recall notice distributed by Health Canada, Apotex Inc. said the product's 28-day blister packs should include 21 active birth-control pills plus seven placebo tablets that contain no drug.

Apotex said blister packs in the affected lot — LF01899A — may instead contain 14 placebo pills and 14 active contraceptive tablets.

Alysena 28 is sold in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, P.E.I. and Quebec.

Read more -

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/04/08/alysena-28-recall_n_3039035.html