Blog Posts by Piper Weiss, Shine Staff

British surgeons are calling for a ban on all cosmetic surgery ads. After the nationwide recall of a low-grade silicone implant, the country's leading experts in the field of plastic surgery are worried consumers are getting the wrong message that cosmetic upgrades are easy and risk-free. They want firmer regulation from media watchdogs, even if that means an all-out blackout of surgical ads.

Aggressive marketing tactics that play on consumer insecurities aren't exclusive to the UK. Whether your combing the Internet or driving down a freeway, you're bound to see an ad for your friendly local plastic surgeon promising a better life.

"Good looking people have more fun, make more money and have more good looking friends," asserts California surgeon Dr. Timothy Kelly in a Miami Vice-inspired commercial for his services.

Kelly's commercial verges on parody, but as more surgeons sink big dollars into ad campaigns, the message is spreading. It's also getting slicker. With so many signs Read More »from Should Plastic Surgery Ads Be Banned? UK Doctors Raise Good Question

There's Mark in 'The Fighter' doing that thing my friend likes. But it's not the same anymore.Whenever I think of Mark Wahlberg, I think of my best friend who surprised me once by admitting she's hot for him. I'd never pegged her for a Wahlberg type, or even a type to have a celebrity crush, but she made a good case for her attraction: he's got a great build that's not too boyish, he can do comedy as well as drama which suggests he's smart, he's fairly stable compared to most actors and he's got this sexy way of looking at an actress's lips when she talks.

Clearly, her crush was the real deal. And I supported it.

Then Mark goes ahead and makes a deeply uninformed, slightly insane statement about the 9/11 attacks while promoting his latest movie and ruins everything. If you haven't seen it already here's the quote: "'If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn't have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first class cabin and then me saying "OK, we're going to land somewhere safely, don't worry".'
Obviously something is wrong with the way his

Read More »from Mark Wahlberg’s Dumb 9/11 Comments: What Does it Take to Lose Your Crush on a Celebrity?

It's a boy! And he's five. Beck Laxton, 46, and partner Kieran Cooper, 44, have spent half the decade concealing the gender of their son, Sasha.

"I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping," Laxton said in an interview with the Cambridge News. "Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?"

Take a look at the most controversial parenting stories of the year.

Laxton, a UK-based web editor, and her partner, Cooper, decided to keep Sasha's sex a secret when he was still in the womb. The birth announcement stated the gender-neutral name of their child, but skipped the big reveal. Up until recently, the couple only told a few close friends and family members that Sasha was a boy and managed to keep the rest of the world in the dark. But now that he's starting school the secret's out.

For years, Becks has been referring to her child, the youngest of three, as "the infant" on her personal blog. But guarding the public from her son's gender was only part

Read More »from Couple Finally Reveals Child's Gender, Five Years After Birth

You're looking at the largest item of clothing ever made from spider silk. This gold cape was a four-year project involving more than one million spiders. And not just any spiders. These guys are a rare species from Madagascar with golden filaments that produce the blindingly saffron product you see here.

This fashion statement is currently on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Actually, spider silk is a hot commodity in the art world right now. Last year, another, slightly less ambitious spider silk garment -- an 11-foot scarf -- was exhibited in museums from New York to London.

Part of the fascination with the process comes from the craftsmanship. The scarf alone required a commitment from 70 people with the ability to work on machinery not really employed since the 19th century in France. But Madagascar spider silk also has some otherworldly properties. For instance, it's virtually weightless so it doesn't feel like anything. It's as close as you'll get to an

Read More »from Why is PETA Upset Over This Gold Cape?

A Colorado mom who was struck by lightning- yes lightning-during her first trimester gave birth to a healthy baby girl this week. At three months pregnant, Stephanie Alberti was at a stock car race when she was knocked over and temporarily paralyzed by a freak bolt that hit her straight on. The next six months were spent worrying about how it will affect her unborn child. But after a difficult delivery- the child's umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck-Alberti gave birth to a health 6.5 pound baby girl.

Was this a first for modern medicine? I assumed so until I did a little digging.

In fact, lightning strikes and pregnancies go way back. The earliest occurrence on record is 1883. At least 12 cases have since been recorded. According to pregnancy medical journals, the survival rate for moms is 100 percent, while the survival rate for the fetus is about 50 percent. (That's the opposite of the odds in the movie "Powder" by the way.)

A similar case to Alberti's occurred in 1963

Read More »from Pregnant and Struck by Lightning: A Brief History

Teen Mom star in court this week. (Paul Adao/INFphoto.com)The same day Teen Mom 2 star Jenelle Evans showed up to court in shackles and prison stripes, the soundtrack to her life debuted on iTunes. For any other star on any other series this might be considered bad timing, but for the Teen Moms their real life has become a living movie. Their real-time horrors are like bonus clips.

Is it any surprise the network would want to squeeze out a little more entertainment from their exploits?

MTV's Teen Mom soundtrack, out this week, collects 12 songs featured on the series' five seasons. If you're familiar with the show, you might recognize some of the emo stirrings that tie up each subject's devastating issue with the same montage technique as Grey's Anatomy and One Tree Hill. Some one looks out a window. Another cradles her baby. Another drives silently in her car, while a song sums up a hack diary entry of their lives: "lost in a void that only grows/in a skin I've grown to hate."

That's the band E for Explosion, by the way. They're on the

Read More »from There's a 'Teen Mom' Soundtrack. Anyone Else Think That's Weird?

The earth weighs 5.9736×1024kg in case your kid asks. (ThinkStock Photos)Where do babies come from? That used to be every parent's dreaded question. You may not know how to respond, but hopefully you know the answer. A new survey of over 2,000 moms and dads suggests that the real tough questions for parents are the ones they don't have answers for.

The big stumpers:
"Why does the moon come out during the day sometimes?"

"How much does the earth weigh?"

"How do airplanes fly?

"Will we ever discover aliens?"

"Why is water wet?"

"How do I do long division?"

"What makes a rainbow"

"Where do birds fly in winter?"

And, of course, the age old noodle-softener:

"Why is the sky blue?"

For many of these common kid queries, there are legitimate answers easily tackled by meteorologists, earth scientists, engineers and everyone's faithful sidekick, Wikipedia. Some questions are more open-ended (i.e.: E.T. phone home) but enough data exists to point kids in a realistic direction. But not all parents are willing to do that under pressure.

Only a third of those

Read More »from The Questions Parents Fear the Most

Now that the holidays are over it's officially chocolate season. That's the time of the year leading up to the day-long excuse to celebrate the world's best candy. Got it? Let's commence the celebration by pointing out just how versatile the ingredient really is. Some people see chocolate and think bar. Others see it and think former U.S. President with two swans emerging from his shoulders. It's all perspective. Here are some of the most indulgent, unlikely, even terrifying objects made from chocolate. Sweet dreams.

Related:

History of chocolate and Valentine's day

The truth about white chocolate

10 extreme chocolate chip cookies

Read More »from 14 Amazing Chocolate Sculptures