Blog Posts by Piper Weiss, Shine Staff

(ThinkStock Photos) A pair of 25-year old twin sisters will legally become brothers when they complete their gender reassignment surgery at a Shanghai Hospital. The Chinese-born identical twins have already begun the complicated medical procedure which could take months.

So far, their first surgical operation has been successful, according to the AFP. "They said they would continue to save up (money) from hard work so they can return for their respective last phases of surgery," their surgeon Zhao Yede told Shangai Daily.

For now, the twins are keeping their identity under-wraps out of fear they would lose their current jobs. It's worth the risk for the siblings who live as men, but aren't legally considered male until their surgery is complete. When they've finished their procedures, they'll be the first transgender twins in China.

Identicial twins who share the desire to change sexes are by, all standards, rare- particularly if they're both born female. A 2005 report on a pair of 18 year old

Belvedere Vodka's alarmingly offensive new ad has been pulled. Unfortunately, these weren't.

Cleda and Frell Blair (Courtesy of the Blair Family)Seventy-six years ago, Cleda and Rosemond "Frell" Blair vowed never to part. They kept their word, even in death.

Just sixteen hours after Cleda, 95, passed away last Wednesday in an Idaho retirement home, Rosemond, 94, died as well.

Video: meet America's longest married couple

"They were together constantly," the couple's son, 68-year-old Boyd Blair, told the Associated Press. "They were inseparable in life and I guess also inseparable in a better place."

As high school students in Lewiston Utah, they fell in love and later married. Their romance survived a World War, and spawned 2 children, 12 grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren. Frell, a World War II veteran and mechanic, built a home in Oregon for his wife and growing family when he returned from the Pacific Isles in 1946. In recent years, they relocated to an Idaho retirement community to be closer to their family (who collected vintage photos of the couple in this online archive).

Cleda endured a long battle with breast

At 15, Venus Palermo has grown into her doll obsession rather than out of it. Under the screen name Venus Angelic, the London based teenager posts beauty tutorials on YouTube for fans who want to look like her. But that's not why she's the latest viral video star. It's because she looks like a living doll.

According to Palermo, you too could be a ball-jointed doll (or BJD as she calls it) with the right over-sized pupil contacts, plastic-sheen-effect powder and pure white eye shadow. Based on her 5 million viewers and the legions of lookalike fans on her Facebook page, people are taking her advice.

Video: father's extreme parenting goes viral

The modern ball-jointed doll is widely popular in Japan, a country both

A new Shine feature following the fringes of sexuality. We're not judging it, we just didn't think of it until now.

Make a flash-mob for Ellen and it won't go unnoticed. A group of dancers put on a surprise show outside of a JCPenney and leaked it online. So what's that got to do with the talk show host? Last month, after Degeneres became spokesperson for the retail giant, a small army of outspoken critics called for a boycott of the store simply because of the talk show host's sexual identity. Their hope was to ultimately get JCPenney to drop Ellen. But the big shiny Penney stood by Ellen. So did thousands of fans on Facebook. Eventually the homophobic fringe group backed off.

The whole thing was a triumphant collaboration of one star, one mega-corporation and a whole lot of online support. "My haters are my motivators," was Ellen's pitch perfect statement at the time. It was enough to make you want to dance.

And that's just what GROOV3, an community-oriented dance group, did at a California mall. The troupe invited all levels of dancers to celebrate the win and learn some moves just hours

The new McDonald's Happy Meal commercial emphasizes apples, not toys. McDonald's is giving kids a new reason to buy their Happy Meals, and it doesn't involve toys. An ad campaign launching Friday hopes to teach kids to hit the Golden Arches because it's healthy.

Yes, those Golden Arches. The cartoon spot will follow a boy named Ferris who teaches his friend, an over-indulgent goat, to pick fruit and dairy over things like paper and baseballs. During a trip to McDonald's.

Not only are there no freebie action figures, there's not a single burger in the entire commercial. Could that be a first for McDonald's?

It's a stretch for a chain that relies on deep fryers and "pink slime" to carry out orders. But recent additions to the kids' menu -- from apple slices to low fat milk -- are changing the brand's image, or at least attempting to. Now that Happy Meals come with fewer fries and a choice of apple slices, the calorie count has dropped by 20 percent. But the bulk of the meal is still grease-laden.

In recent years, the fast food brand has been singled

Jessica Simpson's Elle cover.
Is a pregnant woman's body not safe for supermarkets? An Arizona grocery store is being accused of censoring an Elle magazine cover featuring a very pregnant Jessica Simpson in her birthday suit. Issues of the glossy are getting the Hustler Magazine treatment, placed behind a make-shift  "shield" on the rack so only Simpson's face peaks out, according to Jezebel.

PHOTOS: Famous, nude and pregnant on magazine covers

A reader to the site sent in the photo of the cardboard-covered issue in a Tucson Safeway. It's unclear whether a shop clerk or a patron provided the cover-up. Jezebel's Cassie Murdoch followed up with the store's manager who claimed not to be aware of the cardboard shield. But at least one person  was offended by the image.

"True, her breasts are somewhat exposed, but it's not too different than what you could see on this year's Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition cover," writes Murdoch. "And what do you think the chances are that they covered that up?"

For the record,