CNN writes in a recent article, Dim economy drives woman to donate eggs for profit, that fertility clinics across the country are reporting they are fielding more calls lately from women interested in egg donation that this time last year. They cite people like Robin von Halle, president of Alternative Reproductive Resources, who reports that her Chicago agency is currently getting up to 50 calls a day. This time last year, they were only recieving 10 to 30 calls a day.
But is it hard cold cash or increased awareness that is fueling this apparent surge in egg donation interest?
Given that …read more

No loan comes without conditions. You know what I mean. You’re required to make regular payments on time, pay interest, and are charged late payment fees etc when you’re not following the rules.
Well, it seems that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is no different. They, too, attach conditions on their loans to recipient countries. Conditions such as the country being required to reduce or limit their education, social services, and health expenditure in an effort to get inflation in check. The idea behind this is that, despite these cutbacks in services, once the country’s inflation has been controlled and economy …read more

Terry Pratchett, bestselling author of the Discworld novels, was diagnosed with a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease last year.
When he announced his condition in December, he called it ‘an embuggerance’.
Now he has a whole lot more to say. At the recent Annual Network Conference of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust in England, Terry talked about how it felt to discover he had Alzheimer’s disease and the extreme measure he would go to in order to get cured…
“Part of me lives in a world of new age remedies and science, and some of the science is a little like vodoo, …read more

Money might not buy happiness but how you spend your money could  just make you happier according to a new study conducted by the Harvard Business School and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
The results of the study, published in the latest edition of Science, were based on a series of experiments that examined the question ‘How could people use their money more effectively so that it would actually deliver more happiness?’
Three experiments were conducted…
The first featured 632 Americans who were asked to rate their happiness on a five point scale, report their annual income, and estimate the amount …read more

                
Turns out it’s not only humans that are attracted to money. Germs are too according to a new Swiss study that suggests that those who deal with large quantities of money are at greater risk of catching the flu. The study found that flu viruses were able to survive on banknotes for up to 17 days after initial exposure.
Luckily (or unluckily) most of us don’t handle enough money to be at risk of getting infected.
But what about cashiers and bank employees who routinely deal with large amounts of paper currency?
Will they soon be turned into gloved and masked men …read more

Brain fitness is the name of the game. Everywhere you turn, there are articles and studies telling you to exercise your brain before it turns to mush. Use it or lose it seems to be the theme.
Well, here’s a way to not only exercise your brain but also give food to those in need.
                                    
FreeRice.com has created an interactive multichoice vocabulary quiz. You click on an answer and if you’re right, the rice bowl on the screen fills with rice. For each right answer 20 grams of rice is donated on your behalf through the United Nations to help end …read more

Ever wondered how much your body is worth? Start planning now with the Cadaver Calculator!
The Cadaver Calculator asks you a series of questions, including whether you are fit or obese, if you’re a lil smokey or not, how much liquor you quaff, if you are an albino (hey), and if you ever eat anything remotely leafy and green. My mortal coil is evidently worth 5 G’s. How much is yours worth?
(Brilliant: the Cadaver Calculator comes to us via Mingle2, an online dating site. Now that’s romance!)

At healthbolt, we understand that a healthy life style, not a temporary diet, promotes health. But for those who need the “jump start” a diet may provide, Consumer Reports has rated some of the most popular plans. According to this study, 41% of Americans say they are dieting, and more than 60% say they have dieted at some point. Despite all of the multi-million dollar diet hype, most of those folks say they do it on their own. The site also evaluates diet books, the top being the Oprah-endorsed Best Life Diet. As far as a program, Weight Watchers …read more

Photo: doppeltbelichtet
Brett Arends over at The Street is casting a cynical eye on Tenet’s possible likely inevitable hiring of Jeb Bush as their director. He looks into Tenet Health Care’s murky past and comes up with a quite a laundry list of problems for which, Jeb is the cure…

Tenet had to pay $900 million to Uncle Sam last summer to settle charges that it had overbilled Medicare and Medicaid over many years.
Tenet just paid $80 million to the IRS after an audit found it owed back taxes going back as far as 1995.
The company recently had to restate nearly five …read more

Adidas is running their current 29% off 9 items sale with coupon code 29OFF9 at check out. You don’t have to buy 9 items to get the discount. You just have to buy one of the 9 items on their Adidas: 29% Off 9 Page. (No affiliation, just a good deal on some cool stuff.)
If anyone cares to send me a pair of those Men’s Cyclo Race ST’s, I’m an 11.