Earlier this week the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force shocked legions of women when it recommended waiting until 50 for a first mammogram, despite previous recommendations that women begin mammograms at 40. Then today, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released new guidelines for Pap smears. Previously, all sexually active women were encouraged to get the test—which examines cells in the cervix to determine whether there are any abnormalities that could lead to cancer—every year. Now, the recommendations state that women begin the Pap test at 21, retest every other year, and then, once women hit their 30s, schedule a test every three years.

While many women do not think a screening test can be harmful, medical experts say the risks are real. A test can trigger unnecessary further tests, like biopsies, that can create extreme anxiety. And mammograms can find cancers that grow so slowly that they never would be noticed in a woman’s lifetime, resulting in unnecessary treatment.

Overall, the report says, the modest benefit of mammograms — reducing the breast cancer death rate by 15 percent — must be weighed against the harms. And those harms loom larger for women in their 40s, who are 60 percent more likely to experience them than women 50 and older but are less likely to have breast cancer, skewing the risk-benefit equation. The task force concluded that one cancer death is prevented for every 1,904 women age 40 to 49 who are screened for 10 years, compared with one death for every 1,339 women age 50 to 74, and one death for every 377 women age 60 to 69.

Unless you’ve been in solitary confinement, you’re aware of the fact that Belle de Jour, blogger, former prostitute, and head of the Diary of a London Call Girl publishing empire has revealed herself to be Dr. Brooke Magnanti, research scientist at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health.

When she’s not blogging about her past sexploits, she using her Ph.D. in informatics, epidemiology, and forensic science to research the effects of pesticides on children.  How’s that for an unexpected spin on the whore-with-the-heart-of-gold theme?  I’m kinda jealous of her, I have to admit.  Magnanti is like a year of feminist studies rolled into one.  I would have loved to be the first credible candidate for one of feminism’s holy grails:  the empowered sex worker—able to expose herself to patriarchal fantasies of male domination without becoming damaged goods. 

We may have to add her to our pantheon of saints right up there with Susan Faludi and Katha Pollitt. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more level-headed and reasonable explanation for becoming a call-girl than this one by Magnanti:

“I couldn’t find a professional job in my chosen field because I didn’t have my Ph.D. yet. I didn’t have a lot of spare time on my hands because I was still making corrections and preparing for the viva; and I got through my savings a lot faster than I thought I would. … What can I do that I can start doing straightaway, that doesn’t require a great deal of training or investment to get started, that’s cash in hand and that leaves me spare time to do my work in?”

Is this woman a scientist or what?  Now before you go all ballistic and chastise either myself or Dr. Magnanti for our lack of moral fiber, let me add two things:  working as an escort is not illegal in the United Kingdom.  Yup, prostitution is above board in England—it’s the activities that make sex work a nasty dangerous enterprise that are illegal—no streetwalking, no pimps, no brothels.  Secondly, the idea that prostitution is the only commodified form of erotic activity is crazy.  Consider the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition for a moment—$6.99 and all you get is the illusion of female sexuality.  Magnanti may well be the rare woman who can, as Gloria Steinem put it to Vermont Woman, “experience sexuality as power.…It’s not sexuality that’s the problem, it’s whose sexuality and why?”  That’s also why I can love Belle de Jour and still condemn human trafficking, the prostitution of children, and pimping without appearing hypocritical or naive.

And lest you think I dodged the whole morality question, let me answer in more detail by punting to a smarter mind.  In Feminist Issues in Prostitution, Sarah Bromberg asserts that our stern disapproval of call girls stems “from an underlying assumption in conventional morality that involvement in prostitution will “necessarily” have degenerative effects on a person leading her to other criminal activities.…Prostitution is not a profound condition of degeneracy and in many instances it may be a self-regarding expression of a person surviving in the best way given their skills and opportunities.”  Take that, you Puritans!

So, I’m a big fan of Dr. Magnanti now; I might even buy her new book, Belle de Jour’s Guide to Men. I have a feeling her point of view might be more interesting than the play-hard-to-get, treat-men-like-untrainable-dogs claptrap we women usually get. [As it turns out, the start of chapter one hits the "men are like untrainable dogs" metaphor pretty hard. I guess some stereotypes are hard to break, even if you're a pioneering scientist/call girl.]

Americans are spending more and more dollars each year on probiotic supplements, or so-called “friendly” bacteria. Studies have shown that probiotics—which you might purchase in the form of yogurt, capsules, miso, beverages, or powders—can treat a host of conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhea caused by viral infection or antibiotics, vaginal yeast infections, hypertension, the common cold, and even acne. Over the past decade, consumer sales of probiotics in the U.S. have nearly quadrupled (growing from $115 million in 1998 to $425 million in 2008), according to Nutrition Business Journal.

But, according to a report released today, many of the most popular probiotic supplements don’t contain the amount of live bacteria listed on their labels. ConsumerLab, a private company that tests health and nutritional products at independent labs across the country, found that at the time a consumer buys a probiotic, it may contain as little as 10 to 58 percent of the amount of viable organisms listed on the label. “It’s shocking how many products really don’t have what they claim on their labels,” says Tod Cooperman, the president of ConsumerLab. “The buyer has to be careful.”

ConsumerLab purchased the probiotics as a consumer would, cultured the products to determine the number of viable cells in them, and compared the results to the amounts listed on the product labels. The company sent any product that did not contain the amount of live cells listed on the label to a second lab for additional testing. “We’re absolutely certain about what we found,” Cooperman says. Despite the misleading numbers, most products contained at least one billion organisms, which is probably enough to provide some—although not necessarily optimal—benefit, according to Cooperman. 

Find out more about the findings after the jump. 

by Leigh Bond

Who says that women only like jerks? A new study published in the journal Science from Binghamton University and the University of Arizona adds yet another clue to the mystery that is female sexual selection.  "Mom was right," says the press release. "Nice guys don't always finish last."

Of course, mom was probably not discussing the mating habits of bugs. Researchers in this study observed the effects of a controlled group of male water striders – both aggressive and low-key, and their sexual relations with the females in the group. According to the study led by Omar Tonsi Eldakar of the University of Arizona’s Arizona Research Laboratories, groups of “gentlemen” water striders mated with  more females than did groups of the “psychopath” suitors. The research contradicts previous laboratory studies finding sexually aggressive males more successful at reproducing, said Eldakar. In previous studies, the females were blocked from leaving the areas populated by the sexually aggressive males; this study showed that actually given a choice, the females would leave whenever the jerk bugs came around - the nice bugs got the girls.

What does this have to do with you? Almost nothing. Find out why, after the jump. 

By now, news has reached the blogosphere that Emma Thompson has asked to remove her name from the online petition in support of Roman Polanski.  (Remember him?  He’s the famous director who was convicted of unlawful sexual contact with a minor.) 

Turns out that one of her fans had the courage to ask her to reconsider her support of Polanski.  Well now, I feel stupid.  I too was heartbroken that Thompson had signed the petition. But I didn't do anything about it.  I just complained to my friends and sulked. Thompson, through the roles she has played, and her good works on an array of worthwhile causes she's devoted herself to, is a role model for us women who don't want to play cute to get ahead. But when she signed the petition, I just felt that she was another insular superstar whose strength and cool was just for show.  I am so glad I was wrong.

But isn’t it amazing that one of the reasons Thompson says she signed in the first place was because she was getting tons and tons of calls from her film friends pressuring to sign?  You see, peer pressure doesn’t go away when you grow up and graduate from high school; it follows you wherever you go. (Sigh.) So, I’m hoping (without hope) that Thompson’s act becomes a cause célèbre and peer pressure will force all the other boldface names that I admire to also get their names removed (um, Wes Anderson, it’s your turn).  Should you be a celebrity who’s dying to take her name off and are too frightened—Emma just gave you cover.  Here, I’ll even spin it for you, free of charge.  Simply say something like this: “Emma’s courageous act has made me realize that I just didn’t know what I was signing.  A crime is a crime and nobody deserves special treatment.” 

Oh and just so you don’t seem like a pushover you can also add something like: “But I also have serious concerns that Polanski didn’t get a fair trial last time around and we have to be careful that we’re punishing him for the right things.”  That way, you can get your famous friends off your back and do the right thing. 

So far Thompson has denied our request for an interview but if we do get her on the line, we’ll thank her.

The photo showed a man in a T shirt and baseball cap standing on top of a mountain. Tien-Yi Lee, a Web-site designer who had joined Nerve.com’s online dating service, says she felt an instant connection. “I saw his picture, and he had a very kind of friendly, sparkly vibe,” she says. “He had a great smile.” A few days later, Lee met the man at a bar in Cambridge, Mass. Lee remembers thinking that the photo on Nerve provided a “very accurate” reflection of her date’s personality in real life. A year after marrying the man from the photo, Lee’s first impressions of her future husband still largely hold true. “The picture was in sync with who he is,” she says.

Lee’s experience is common among those who meet on the Internet, according to a new study on the role of physical appearance in creating first impressions. The study, which will be published in next month’s issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, found that you can actually learn a great deal about a stranger’s personality from appearance alone.

An ordained Baptist chaplain and army captain, Roger Benimoff spent two tours of duty in Iraq and months between deployments counseling soldiers in the U.S. During his career, he provided spiritual guidance to American soldiers through crises of faith, bereavement, and trauma until he himself broke down. While training and working as a chaplain at Walter Reed during the height of its crisis, Benimoff was diagnosed with chronic PTSD and spent months of treatment at some of the facilities where he trained as a caretaker. NEWSWEEK's Eve Conant has tracked Benimoff's experiences over the years, starting with his time at Walter Reed, and recently in a book about his experiences, Faith Under Fire. Benimoff retired from the army earlier this year. He spoke with Conant from Dallas, where he is a hospital chaplain, about what might have happened in Fort Hood, how the military families will cope with tragedy on the homefront, and why the army pushed him so far he had to leave.

Is "contact" or "secondary" PTSD a genuine problem?

Oh yes, definitely. I didn't have much time to counsel before I was deployed—I had only three weeks active duty before going over—but I would debrief my soldiers in Iraq all the time about events I was not present at. I remember when Eagle Troop had lost a soldier to a sniper and I did the CISD [Critical Incident Stress Debriefing]. I still have those images in my head. Or when one of Fox Troop's tanks went over a land mine. The soldiers told me about how the IED blew through their tank, how the driver's body was completely destroyed, how it was like spaghetti, and they were desperately trying to pull him out of the driver's seat while their command told them to leave the scene. They didn't leave him behind. But the tension of that, and their descriptions of that moment stay with me. When Eagle Troop lost a sergeant to an RPG, they told me about running into the hospital, seeing Iraq soldiers vomiting on the stairs after what they had just seen—walls covered in blood, brain matter on the floor. These images don't go away and I wasn't even there that day.

It's hard to draw too many conclusions right now, but we do know this: Thursday night, authorities shot and then apprehended the lone suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. A psychiatrist who was set to deploy to Iraq at the end of the month, Hasan reportedly opened fire around the Fort Hood Readiness Center, where troops are prepared for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. And though this scene is a most extreme and tragic outlier, it comes at a time when the stress of combat has affected so many soldiers individually that it makes it increasingly difficult for the military as a whole to deploy for wars abroad. In an abrupt news conference, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the top commander at Fort Hood, said in response to the shooting that authorities would "increase the security presence" on the military base. On the surface, it seemed like a logical enough plan. But it makes one wonder how much any kind of lockdown will either get at the root causes of soldier stresses or better prepare them for more battle.