Daily Archives: May 17, 2017

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SANTA ANA, California By the time they're 50, 85% of American men will have significant hair loss.

It can have serious consequences:one study found nearly 75% of men feel less confident and their hair loss can lead to depression.

Now, an international team of hair restoration doctors is turning to cutting-edge science to grow more hair through cloning.

Construction worker Ric Ortega has dealt with hair loss for a while. For him, it's a health concern.

"I'm outside a lot because I work in the construction industry," said Ric. "I worry about skin cancer on the top of my head."

Ric is considering a hair cloning clinical trial with Doctor Ken Williams, a hair restoration surgeon with California-based Orange County Hair Restoration.

Dr. Wiliams is working with Hair Clone, a British company that believes it will perfect the science of cloning hair.

"The typical candidate would be someone who has had multiple surgeries and can't have any more hair transplantations, but they have lots of areas of balding," explains Dr. Williams.

Doctors would harvest 50 hair follicles and send them to a cryopreservation tank in England. Surgeons there would remove the hair shaft from the bulb, which holds cells that control growth. Then, the cells are multiplied, in a special cell culture.

"Then, when the patient is ready, they have the actual transplantation," explains Dr. Williams.

"They would let us know and we'd go through the process of replication, and getting those 50 cells will now turn in to 1500 cells."

The trial would cost Ric between $4000 and $10,000 plus air fare to England where he`d get his cloned hair. England is the only western country that allows this type of treatment.

The main challenge in cloning is that hair follicles cannot grow on their own, yet they are too complex to be grown in test tubes. There may be safety concerns that cells that induce hair may also induce tumors and once this issue is resolved, the FDA still must approve hair cloning for safety and effectiveness.

There are plans for clinical trials in the U.S. and may be approved in upcoming years.

EMOTIONAL ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH HAIR LOSS: A study revealed that men who had more profound hair loss were more dissatisfied with their appearance and were more concerned with their look than those with minimal hair loss. Studies have shown that in men who suffer from hair loss, nearly 75% of them feel less confident since the onset of hair loss, especially in dealing with the opposite sex. In extreme circumstances, hair loss can cause distress and result in depression. Source: (http://www.emedexpert.com/tips/hair-loss-effects.shtml)

If this story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Jim Mertens at jim.mertens@wqad.com or Marjorie Bekaert Thomas at mthomas@ivanhoe.com.

Link:

YOUR HEALTH: Cloning hair to eliminate baldness - WQAD.com

More feature copying, but it's hardly surprising at this point.

Heres an idea for a fun social app: It starts with a camera. First, you take a picture or video. Then you add fun effects masks that hew to your face, or crowns that rest at your hairline. You can send these images or videos to friends via a direct message, or share them with all your contacts via a feature called Stories. Also, they disappear.

A year ago, these features were unmistakably Snapchats. But now the Facebook-owned Instagram has them too. After copying Snapchats Stories feature last August, Instagram is releasing a version of its selfie lenses today, finishing off a brazen cloning of Snapchats most beloved features just as its parent company, Snap Inc., is getting its footing on the public market. The only thing missing is Discover, a collection of just-for-Snapchat media created by professionals and publications.

Snapchat didnt invent selfie lenses, but it did popularize their use. That pioneering role did not merit a mention in an Instagram blog post announcing the new selfie lenses which are interactive, just like Snapchats. This was a departure from when Instagram introduced its version of Stories, a feature that Instagram loudly credited to Snapchat.

Today, were introducing face filters in the camera, an easy way to turn an ordinary selfie into something fun and entertaining, Instagram said. Whether you're sitting on the couch at home or out and about, face filters help you express yourself and have playful conversations with friends.

Instagrams introduction of selfie lenses (it calls them face filters) comes in the midst of a major push from Facebook to layer digital experiences on top of the real world via its apps cameras. At its F8 conference in April, Facebook unveiled a new camera effects platform, inviting developers to create their own masks and filters that, after approval, would be made available for use inside Facebook (which already has its own set of face filters). Using the same backbone technology, Instagram could easily introduce a similar platform of its own.

With its effects platform, Facebook appears to be attempting to surpass Snapchat in terms of mask and filter quality. But its ambition is far greater. Relying on computer vision technology, Facebok would like to map out the world and allow developers to build games, and overlay digital art on top of the physical world we live in today. When you can make it so that you can intermix digital and physical parts of the world, that's going to make a lot of our experiences better and our lives richer, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told BuzzFeed News in an interview ahead of F8.

In the meantime, the Snapchat cloning appears to be a boost for Facebook, at least inside Instagram. Instagrams Stories feature is used by 200 million people every month. WhatsApps Stories copy, Status, is used by 175 million people each day. Facebook and Messenger appear to be somewhat behind that. Snap, struggling to grow revenue and, to some extent, its user base, saw billions of dollars wiped off its market cap last week.

Asked if Instagram plans to ship more Snapchat-inspired features, an Instagram spokesperson said, We arent sharing any other updates at this time.

Even if they were, theres little left to copy.

Alex Kantrowitz is a senior technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco. He reports on social and communications.

Contact Alex Kantrowitz at alex.kantrowitz@buzzfeed.com.

Got a confidential tip? Submit it here.

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Instagram Adds Face Filters, Snapchat Cloning Complete - BuzzFeed News

What could possibly explain the small changes in Avril Lavignes appearance that took place between 2002

Did you know Avril Lavigne was replaced by a lookalike named Melissa in 2003? At least, thats what the internet would have you believe. The old conspiracy theory that Lavigne was cloned resurfaced on Twitter over the weekend, but it has been bandied about the internet since 2005 and is thought to have originated on a Brazilian fanpage.

The theory claims Lavigne, struggling with fame at the beginning of her career, began using a body double named Melissa. At some point, the real Lavigne is said to have died, so the record company replaced her with Melissa full-time. Proof has included Lavignes red carpet shots (Lavigne wears trousers; Melissa prefers dresses and skirts) and supposed differences between the facial features of pre-2003 Lavigne and the current incarnation. Theorists also believe Melissa has left clues in songs, such as Slipped Away, in which she sings: The day you slipped away was the day I found it wont be the same. There was even a publicity shot in which Lavigne had Melissa written on her hand. Spooky.

But Lavigne is not the first celebrity to be subject to a (completely unverified) cloning conspiracy theory, as the following examples show ...

Possibly the best known example is the claim that Paul McCartney was replaced with a lookalike after he had been killed in a car accident. The urban legend took root in 1969, following the release of the Beatles Abbey Road. Fans hunted for clues they were convinced John Lennon was saying I buried Paul in Strawberry Fields Forever, for example (Lennon said he was actually saying cranberry sauce). Unlike some more recent conspiracy theories, the person at the centre actually rebutted the claim. In an interview with Life magazine in November 1969, McCartney said: Perhaps the rumour started because I havent been much in the press lately.

Moving away from the clone replaces celebrity genre, theorists believe Taylor Swift is, in fact, the clone of a former satanic priestess. Seems reasonable. The theory, which dates back to 2011, claims Swift is an Illuminati clone of Zeena LaVey, the daughter of the founder of the Church of Satan. Essentially, the two look similar. There are thousands of videos on YouTube comparing the two, which surely counts as proof.

Beyonc and Jay Z have long been associated with the Illuminati on certain pockets of the internet so much so that Beyonc referenced it in Formation. It is also claimed that the Illuminati uses clones to brainwash society. Sometimes, all it takes to set the conspiracy wheels in motion is two different pictures of the same person, and the Beyonc cloning theory gained a flurry of attention last year when a Facebook post that compared images of the singer from 2010 and 2016 went viral. It read: Fans the chick on the left is her but the chick on the right is not. This high degree masonry witch on the right is a cloned [sic].

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Why fans think Avril Lavigne died and was replaced by a clone named Melissa - The Guardian

Sure, Alfred Ngaro screwed up royally but there was a lot more to the National party conference this weekend. Steven Joyce let a budget secret slip, Paula Bennett stole the show, and the party revealed its 10 point plan to shut down Labour, writes Simon Wilson.

I cant tell you how proud I am, Bill English told the northern regional conference of the National Party over the weekend, about the pay rise that 55,000 care workers are going to get. Its the biggest pay rise in New Zealand history, it will go to a low-paid and overwhelmingly female workforce, and English was stoked.

We worked on that for two-and-a-half years, he said, as if equal pay had always been the governments goal and the case had taken so long only because theyd had to persuade everyone else to agree.

I imagine that if any of those 55,000 women or their union negotiators had been in the room, that would have been the point where they started throwing things.

No doubt Bill English is proud of the achievement. Now. But the reason the agreement took so long is that his government while he was minister of finance and then prime minister resisted every step of the way.

Steven Joyce was asked to give Paula Bennett advice on which shoes to buy (Photo: Simon Wilson)

It was one of a number of revealing moments which are being obscured by the fallout from Alfred Ngaros foolish comments all of which deserve more scrutiny than theyre currently getting. One such came from Steven Joyce, addressing the conference as minister of finance for the first time.Asked from the floor why the government didnt introduce a commuter rail link from Hamilton to Auckland, he said he didnt think there was a case for it. The last time hed looked at it, he said, when he was minister of transport (that is, before 2011), it would have been cheaper to fly the passengers by helicopter.

Which is funny, but it wasnt true then and it certainly isnt true now. Besides, what an idiotic thing for a minister of finance to say when hes just finished a speech boasting about his governments commitment to good infrastructure.

But then he seemed to reveal a budget item. He said he was more interested in extending the electrification of the rail line into Hunua, by which he meant the National-held Hunua electorate that stretches around the Bombay Hills. In other words, Pukekohe. Joyce doesnt say things like that randomly. Electrification to Pukekohe is already on the governments 10-year plan. Hot tip: watch for an early date and financial commitment in the budget on May 25.

But maybe the most interesting thing to happen in politics this weekend was this list, presented to a major partypolitical conference by a high-rankingMP:

Over the weekend, while Nationals northern region was meeting in Auckland, the Labour Party was also holdingits election-year congress in Wellington. The above list was presented to one of those conferences by a senior party member.

It wasnt aired in Wellington. The list was reeled off by education minister Nikki Kaye. Its her 10-point list of accomplishments by the government.

English watches the action from the wings (Photo: Simon Wilson)

Theres just so much to say about this.

To start, thats a Labour agenda, isnt it? A government with a special focus on the least well off, social policy that makes a difference, the state actively engaged in improving peoples lives because it aint gonna happen any other way? Isnt that Labour?

Well, National begs to differ. At that convention they barely talked about the economy. Take finance minister Steven Joyces speech making the case for a strong economy out of it, and every other presentation and discussion was focused on social policy. The issues in the spotlight all weekend were health, housing and crime particularly in relation to aggravated robbery of retail outlets in the poorer suburbs of Auckland. Even prime minister Bill English, when it came time for his speech, used social policy achievements rather than financial ones to make his points.

Mark this. Nationals strategy to win the election this year is to mount an offensive aimed straight at the heart of Labour. The old idea was: National = safe economic management; Labour = cares about people; Greens = cares about the environment and the planet.

National wants that cares about people brand now. Actually, it may want the clean and green brand too. Science and innovation minister Paul Goldsmith told the convention he didnt think the party talked enough about what he calls the New Zealand experience, which meant several things, first and foremost being our wonderful environment.

Coming in the same week as yet another damning report on water quality, this was another of those comments that would have had a different audience throwing things. But you cant say theyre not brazen and you cant deny that if you say something often enough in politics, a lot of people will start to believe it.

(This rebranding process has a parallel on the other side, too: the Budget Responsibility Rules agreed on by Labour and the Greens are designed to promote their credentials as safe economic managers.)

Just wait till you see the budget: Steven Joyce will go to town on social policy initiatives.

Does Nikki Kayes list stack up? In some ways it does. Its true that National has announced funding for more police, for example, and it did extend paid parental leave. It did also roll out a programme for warmer, drier homes. And so on. But do those simple facts disguise a larger story? National cut police numbers when it came to power and its new policy coat-tails on Labours, which was announced earlier and is for a larger increase. National was dragged reluctantly to the parental leave agreement, as it was for the care workers agreement, byskilful negotiators at unions and others. The warmer, drier homes programme is a Green Party initiative adopted by the government.

It is unequivocally true that there are more jobs. English and Joyce both spoke of New Zealands outstanding job figures: 10,000 new jobs created every month for the last 18 months. Joyce said we have the highest rate of employment among the adult population in the OECD, and 78.9 percent of the jobs are fulltime. In Australia, its 68.3 percent.

But they didnt mention the other part of Kayes claim: higher wages. New Zealand does not have a high wage economy and were not heading there anytime soon. Across great swathes of the economy the minimum wage is now the inescapable norm; meanwhile, over the last 20 years CEO salaries have grown from 11 times the average wage to 19 times. The New Zealand economy is structured to avoid it becoming high-wage, and your boss probably gets a bonus to help keep it that way.

Alfred Ngaro stole the show but behind his comments there were many more storylines (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

Never mind, National has a message and were going to hear it a lot: they are the party with a heart. English himself used three examples at the core of his speech: higher rates of achievement in schools; Mori immunisation rates which are now as high as Pakeha; slashed waiting times in hospital emergency departments. All three are true.

Social housing minister Alfred Ngaro got into trouble for making a speech in which he seemed to threaten Mangere marae leader (and Labour candidate) Willie Jackson, and Alan Johnson from the Salvation Army, with funding cuts if they didnt stop criticising the government.

In addition to the obvious problem of a cabinet minister making statements like that, Ngaro said something else about Johnson that was also a worry. He was surprised to discover Johnson didnt even know about half the things the government is doing. This isnt credible: Johnson is one of the most knowledgeable experts in the sector and is likely to know more about government programmes than the newbie minister. I suspect Ngaro had navely misread Johnsons politeness (Oh no minister, do tell me more.), and that comment, along with the threat, suggests he is patronising the sector rather than taking it seriously.

This was the northern region conference. Thats Auckand and Northland. Did they produce an Auckland strategy? Nope. A major urban policy of any kind? Nope. That was astonishing.

English said it was now conceivable to think of a four-lane motorway from Whangarei to Matamata: as his sole contribution on transport, in this city, it was staggeringly irrelevant.

Steven Joyce defended the current high immigration settings as being essential to economic growth and, by implication, beyond debate. His list of key infrastructure was, in order: roads, ultra-fast broadband, railways, electricity transmission and rebuilding hospitals.

The whole convention was the Paula Bennett show, at which English and Joyce seemed to be making guest appearances. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

Paula Bennett talked in the session on crime about how worried she was about P. There were several Indian businesspeople in attendance, but the moderator, Pakuranga candidate Simeon Brown, was apparently unable to see them. The questions he took from the floor were almost entirely from the white folk in the room.

Another hot budget tip: there will not be a rethink for Auckland.

But they are very pleased with the leader. There were ritualised mentions of the name John Key, but English is their guy now. He has a warm personality when hes among friends, hes not afraid of making jokes and he impresses with sincerity. Hes a personable leader and it wont be long before he works out how to present that on TV.

Mind you, hes not a patch on his deputy. The whole convention was the Paula Bennett show, at which English and Joyce seemed to be making guest appearances. Its effortless for her now, the way her personality dominates a crowd. She laughs at English because his jokes are dad jokes. On the Saturday she even called him adorable, although he wasnt there at the time.

Shes the good time girl you want at your party , but she lets you know shell cut you down in a flash if you get on her bad side. At the end of Steven Joyces speech she got up and asked a question.

Im having trouble deciding which shoes to buy, she told him. The dark blue or the light blue?

The options, with a $950 price tag, flashed up on the screen behind him. Then she flashed up the sales docket, which suggested shed bought the shoes using his credit card.

If politics arent going your way, in election year, you dont go anywhere near jokes like that. Way too dangerous. But Paula Bennett wasnt worried about that, and nor was Steven Joyce, and nor was National.

The Spinoff Auckland is sponsored by Heart of the City, the business association dedicated to the growth of downtown Auckland as a vibrant centre for entertainment, retail, hospitality and business.

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National is cloning Labour's identity and other lessons from its weekend conference - The Spinoff