18 Ways That Social Media and Technology Might Change Your ...

So, I guess Facebook is here to stay. ?In honor of its IPO, I?m brainstorming about how social media might be existentially changing our romantic lives and intimacy. Here?s the first installment. ?I?ll postpart 2 Wednesday.

JEALOUSY LOOMS LARGER

Romance might get more jealousy-prone. In an earlier column I summarized research by cyber psychologists who find that Facebook?s a fertile petri dish for jealousy. Even self-confident partners can effortlessly (almost unavoidably) monitor their lovers? Facebook pages, which inevitably will include unknown friends and the occasional easily-misconstrued comment? which encourages more jealousy and, in a feedback loop, more Facebook surveillance.?

OLD LOVERS NEVER DIE.? THEY JUST FADE AWAY TO YOUR WALL

It?s the age of the sexual uncanny, that eerie sense that something from another time and place appears, hauntingly, in this time and place. Ghosts of romances past persist on the Wall, or get resurrected through Friending. ?In some ways this might be really positive. It allows a more seamless, even blurred, transition from lover to friend, which exes often say they want but can?t achieve. In other ways the presence of a romantic anachronism doesn?t provide a clear sense of closure. And it makes romantic nostalgia more tangible, and potentially unsettling.

?IMPULSE BUY? INFIDELITY

In 2010, 1 in 5 U.K. divorce petitions filed online mentioned Facebook.

I quoted that statistic in an interview once. The show?s producer ?Mary? later told me that it had happened to her. Mary?s husband had friended an old flame on Facebook. It started innocently but deepened into a private correspondence. The non-physical intimacy escalated to a physical (re)union. Months later, when the husband asked for a divorce, Mary was ?blindsided? and devastated. Evidently, she said, her marriage was ?weaker? than she knew.

Or, social media is stronger than we know. ?Online social media increase infidelities of opportunity:? Temptation comes to your wall and friends you (women tell me of husbands who received photos of bikini-clad women, asking to be friends with benefits); you can effortlessly window shop for lovers on affair-finding sites. An ?impulse buy? becomes easier

?

RELATIONSHIP TALK GOES COED

In the unwired age, candid heart-to-hearts about sex and love lives were usually conducted with one?s own kind, and in person.? Women discuss relationships with female friends, and men discuss them (if at all) with other men. I?ve noticed that discussion forums online, just by accident, are stimulating more coed conversation about relationships. They toss together men, women, young, old, in an interactive format.? This might broaden perspectives, whereas ?pink team? and ?blue team? conversations, even if only subconsciously, tend to reinforce tribal loyalties and in-group biases (i.e, ?You know how women are?,? or, ?He?s like all the other men??).?

THE SEE-THROUGH MARRIAGE

How many daily moments in another person?s marriage are you now privy to on Facebook? You learn that a couple had pancakes in bed this morning and listened to birds. Another friend wishes his wife had washed the dishes. For better or worse or both, social media lets us peek inside the black box of non-celebrity marriages, with all their intimacies, irritations, and quotidian routines. And you get this bird?s-eye marital view even of ?friends? that you?ve never met.

Does marital transparency like this make a love life more susceptible to comparison and the whole range of feelings that comparisons spawn? Could it skew our expectations about marriage, or create new consensus views of marriage within social clusters?

THE RELATIONSHIP METAPHOR OF THE WEB REPLACES THE RING ?

The 21^st century symbol of intimacy might turn out to be a web rather than the closed circle of the wedding ring. Instead of having an exclusive relationship with intimacy confined in that circle, maybe we?ll begin to think in terms of more flattened out, dense networks of intimacies. We?re meaningfully connected to more than a handful of people simultaneously. Growing interest in polyamory is one example of this. The geometry of attachments will get more complex than the close circle. The web symbolizes that visually, and the Web itself also facilitates the change.

Whether this web of connections makes us feel better, or lonelier (as recent research suggests), it?s likely to make us feel different, somehow.

NEW SEXUAL IDENTITIES ARE GOOGLED INTO EXISTENCE

Romantic or sexual preferences can morph into social identities through a search engine version of Natural Selection.? ?Asexuality? evolved from something that individuals felt in isolation to a social identity, with its own visibility and member network, largely through thousands of people Googling the term and concept, until it sedimented into an identity. Asexuality is now discussed as a sexual and lifestyle choice.?

THE ALL-SMOKE, NO-FIRE AFFAIR

Cyber-affairs are relationships with sexual intimacy but no physicality. ?Often the ?lovers? never meet, touch or kiss. Is this a ?real? affair, or romance? ?Physical contact was once an affair?s sine qua non, but now it?s an optional characteristic for those who feel like a ?mental affair? online is every bit as real as the physical kind.

Some couples would consider this infidelity. ?Others wouldn?t.? They might see erotic chatting and sexting as a sort of private pornography writing, between two people who create an interactive but incorporeal fantasy, on the cyber-frontier between an affair and pornography.

FANTASY SEX

Most of what gets told about sex online is dispiriting, dangerous and sometimes tragic. The sex trafficking of girls and young women is so depressing that it makes it hard to get up in the morning. Twenty percent of all Internet users engage in some kind of sexual activity online. What kind of expectations for sex will young people have when a lot of them first encounter it graphically through easily-accessible Internet pornography, online fantasy worlds, or the sexual marketplace as gleaned through Craig?s List? A friend who works with young women has already noted their insecurity about bodies and sex lives, which they tell her is exacerbated because boyfriends have had a steady diet of porn scripts and fantasy bodies before they even begin dating.

Stay tuned??

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Do not Let Your Estate Be A Ticking Time Bomb | Finance information

Most large estates

require more extensive distribution upon death or disability planning than just a simple will in order to save on estate taxes and avoid probate. Federal and estate tax laws allow you to transfer A Certain amount of assets free from estate planning tax. Ensures that your wealth is distributed to the people you want, the way you want gift, with minimal cost and delay.

Estate planning is like health insurance. You do not know what you have until you need to use it! With health insurance, you can change your plan if you have to. With trusts and wills, you may be incapacitated or deceased when your family finds out it was not properly executed, and your assets may not be distributed according to your wishes. I have reviewed many taxable estates that were given poor estate planning advice.

An estate is taxable when it Exceeds the exemption allowed by law. You are able to pass to your heirs a tax free amount of $ 2,000,000 in 2007 and in 2008, and $ 3,500,000 2009th The maximum tax rate for a taxable estate over $ 2,000,000 this year is 45%. By Utilizing all of the tax reduction strategies allowed by federal law, you can greatly decrease this liability to your heirs. The best advice I can give to a client with a taxable estate is to make sure you have your estate planning needs Analyzed by a competent, experienced estate planning attorney. The hard part is the IRS expects professionals in my industry, including financial planners, tax preparers, attorneys and estate planning, to plan your financial future based on today?s tax rules, and then they change the rules.

An attorney that Specializes in the area of ??wills, trusts, family limited partnerships, etc., will be able to keep up with these changing laws more competently than a general attorney who tries to cover all areas of law.

Federal law also Allows you to give up to $ 12,000 per year in 2007 (adjusted for inflation over time) per person to as many people as you like without paying taxes poison. Likewise, the recipient of the gift is not subject to income taxes. Giving away the maximum allowable gift to the people you love is one of the easiest ways to lower the taxability of your estate and Allows you to enjoy watching your heirs save or spend the money. I have always said it is much nicer to give with a warm heart than with a cold one. The bottom line is you can give it to the people you choose, or give 45% of what you could have gifted free, to the IRS. Another estate planning strategy is giving money to charities, either while you ?re alive, or at your death. The money you give to a good cause can be replaced to your heirs with the creative use of life insurance. The process of using life insurance as a wealth replacement plan can be complex and beyond the scope of this article, but could be an inexpensive way to pass a defined amount of assets to your beneficiaries. Done properly, proceeds from a life insurance policy can be completely estate and income tax free to the recipients. It is definitely worth discussing with your attorney to see if your circumstances warrant this type of estate planning. bomb

Do not let your estate to be a ticking time. I urge you to discuss your estate plan with your children to Ensure there are no surprises upon your death or disability and everyone can work together to carry out your wishes. p> Since estate planning is very complex, and subject to changing laws, I highly recommend you seek professional advice from a qualified attorney. It is better yet if your attorney is willing to work with your financial advisor and tax preparer that you have a Sun?s team of professionals who are all working together to help you accomplish the best plan for your situation. The money you spend now to plan your estate properly can mean more money for your family and other beneficiaries.

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Roche Alzheimer's drug picked for major test

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Roche Holding AG's Genentech unit has won the right to try its experimental Alzheimer's drug crenezumab on people with no signs of dementia - the first such trial to gauge whether early intervention can help prevent or slow the disease.

The drug will be tested among members of an extended family of about 5,000 people from the Antioquia region of Colombia. They carry a gene that causes them to develop Alzheimer's early, with some experiencing symptoms of memory loss in their mid-30s, scientists say.

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services is backing the trial with a $16 million grant as part of the government's National Alzheimer's Plan announced on Tuesday, which includes a target to find an effective treatment or prevention by 2025.

Another $15 million in trial funding comes from Banner Health, a non-profit organization based in Phoenix, Arizona, that runs a chain of hospitals and which is leading the study. The rest of an estimated $100 million in total costs will be paid by Genentech, the U.S.-based biotechnology unit of Switzerland's Roche.

Trial researchers said they picked the Genentech drug from among 25 rivals, largely because it does not cause vasogenic edema, a brain swelling side effect seen in similar drugs. They include bapineuzumab, being tested by Pfizer Inc and Johnson & Johnson; and Eli Lilly and Co's solanezumab.

Both closely watched drugs are in late-stage clinical trials, with results expected later this year.

The trial in Colombia could offer the most definitive test yet of the amyloid theory of Alzheimer's, which holds that the disease is caused by a steady buildup of a protein known as beta amyloid.

Scientists and drugmakers have been targeting deposits of beta amyloid in Alzheimer's patients for decades, and some have succeeded in removing the sticky plaques that are a hallmark of the disease. But so far, none of the drugs has succeeded in improving patients' thinking and memory capabilities.

Researchers say the reason is likely to be that most of the anti-amyloid drugs in past trials and ongoing studies were tested on people whose brains were already wrecked by Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia that affects 35.6 million people worldwide.

This trial should be different because it will be tested on people before the disease has done much damage to brain cells.

"This will be the first test of an anti-amyloid treatment in a preclinical stage, where it has the best chance to have the most profound benefit," said Dr. Eric Reiman, executive director of Banner Alzheimer's Institute and chief executive of Banner Research in Phoenix, which is leading the trial.

BEFORE SYMPTOMS APPEAR

Richard Scheller, executive vice president for Genentech Research and Early Development, said the problem with other Alzheimer's disease trials, including one run by Genentech, was that beta amyloid takes many years to build up in the brain.

"Once symptoms are apparent, it may be very difficult or too late to reverse the course of the disease. By treating early, we're hoping to prevent the beta amyloid build-up in the first place."

Reiman said Genentech's drug was developed to minimize the chance of causing vasogenic edema and microhemorrhages -- tiny leaks of blood in the brain.

"The studies in animals were very encouraging and the studies so far have also been encouraging in patients," he said.

Having fewer side effects means the drug can be used at higher doses, increasing the chances of getting more of the antibody into the brain, said Dr. Pierre Tariot of the Banner Alzheimer's Institute.

Genentech's drug targets solid bits of beta amyloid that make up plaques in the brain, and free-floating, soluble forms of the protein, which some researchers think may be the real toxic culprit behind the disease.

Scheller said the Colombian family offers a unique opportunity to test drugs because they are virtually certain to develop Alzheimer's disease.

"We know with almost certainty that by the time people with the mutation are 50 years old, everyone will have severe symptoms of the disease. Treating them before they show any symptoms, we will be able to see if we can slow down or prevent the disease from occurring," Scheller said.

The team is working on the study with Dr. Francisco Lopera of the University of Antioquia in Colombia, who first identified the family's illness nearly three decades ago and helped to discover its cause - a mutation on a gene called presenillin.

Lopera's studies of this family have produced many interim biomarkers that will be used by the team to help determine if the disease is progressing.

NATIONAL ALZHEIMER'S GOAL

If all goes well, Genentech hopes to enroll the first patients in early 2013, and have the first interim analysis in early 2017.

Study participants will be 30 or older and within 15 years of the age when their parents' symptoms began. Typically, cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's begins in these Colombian families at around age 45.

Scheller said the study is the best test yet of the amyloid hypothesis because it will clearly show whether removing amyloid from the brain interferes with the progression of Alzheimer's.

That answer may come earlier if researchers get a positive result from the studies of the Pfizer and J&J trial of bapineuzumab, or the Lilly trial of solanezumab.

But if the trials fail, it will not be clear if it was because the amyloid hypothesis failed, or because the drug was tested too late in the disease process, Scheller said.

Reiman said the three-way partnership with the U.S. government is aimed at advancing research, and some of the findings of the study, including samples of blood and tissue, will be made available widely to the research community.

The clock is ticking for the United States to find a cure.

Experts predict that without an effective treatment, the number of Americans with Alzheimer's will double by 2050 to more than 10 million, and related healthcare costs could soar to over $1 trillion a year.

The Obama administration plans to invest $50 million in new Alzheimer's research funding in fiscal 2012 and another $80 million in fiscal 2013.

Meanwhile, Reiman said his team is trying to manage expectations within the Colombian family, making clear the drug is experimental, and the risks and benefits are uncertain.

"It is awfully moving to see families who for generations have been living with what they view is a curse to think about ways that would empower them to engage in this fight against Alzheimer's disease, both for their families, and, as they say, for the world," Reiman said.

(Editing by Michele Gershberg, David Brunnstrom and Jeffrey Benkoe)

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Kanye West Brings Out Kim Kardashian's 'Wild Child'

'I don't know if I'm ready to talk about him,' Kim tells MTV News — but sister Khloé was more than willing to drop a few details!
By Kara Warner

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West
Photo: Eric Ryan/ Getty Images

Despite the fact that most of the details of Kim Kardashian's romantic life have been very public over the last few years, she's been mum on her latest romance with Kanye West. Sure they've been spotted on both coasts holding hands, stealing kisses and such, but we haven't heard many details about their relationship, which many consider to be a very smart move for both parties.

When MTV News caught up with Kim and sister Khloé recently while promoting the new season of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," we asked Kim how she and West made the move from friends to more than friends, which led to an entertaining back-and-forth between the two sisters about how West has been a very positive influence on Kim and brought out an inner wild child of sorts.

"I don't know if I'm ready to talk about him," Kim said sincerely. "I feel like I've had such a hard time sharing my love life that now I'm a little bit more reserved on that."

"For me, we've known Kanye for so many years and he's always been such a good friend to all of us," Khloé jumped in. "We've all been good friends with him. For me, I think friendships make the best relationships. Kim is so happy and is such a different person ... She crowd surfs now."

"OK, enough, enough," Kim said to Khloé before her sister revealed too much.

"No I love, it," Khloé persisted. "You're like a wild, crowd-surfing child and I love you."

In seeing the surprised look on our faces with Khloé's revelation about crowd surfing, Kim attempted to explain what her sister was talking about.

"She uses this 'crowd surf' term, I walked into the house..."

"She crowd surfed on Lamar, Rob and I," Khloé cut in.

"They were all sitting on the couch and I go, 'Have you guys ever, in a concert, crowd surfed?' I jumped on them to try and crowd surf," Kim admitted.

"I don't know why she thought of this," Khloé said. "So now they say I crowd surf," Kim added.

"But she doesn't do stuff like that, so I was like 'You are the new Kourtney,' " Khloé said, which made Kim chuckle. "She can't because she's pregnant," Kim pointed out.

Do you think Kanye West and Kim Kardashian make a good couple? Leave your comment below!

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Exec Goes Out To The Ball Game, Will Deliver Hot Dogs And Stuff To Lazy Giants Fans

If you're like me, the worst part about going to a baseball game -- other than watching your team lose -- is having to deal with lines at the concession stands. You inevitably end up missing at least half an inning wandering throughout the ballpark trying to find the stand you want. And once you do, you inevitably find yourself behind the one person who somehow doesn't know whether he wants a hot dog or popcorn, and has waited until he gets to the very front of the line before beginning to contemplate this oh-so-important decision. Anyway, no more of that -- at least for this week, if you happen to be in San Francisco and plan to attend one of the many games that the homefield Giants will play against the Colorado Rockies, the St. Louis Cardinals, or the Oakland A's. Starting Monday, May 14 and extending through Sunday, "Uber for odd jobs" startup Exec will have some of its people in the stands of AT&T Park, ready and waiting to pick up and deliver food goods for fans too lazy or too enthralled with the game to do it themselves. All those users have to do is open up the Exec app, tell it what they want and where they're sitting, and an exec assistant will be dispatched to fetch that food for them.

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Obama seeks out pastors on gay marriage (Star Tribune)

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True Blood Season 5 Preview: New Footage!

Christopher Meloni is going from solving crimes to exposing fangs.

The former Law & Order: SVU star has signed on for a regular role on season five of True Blood, coming on board this summer in the key role of Roman, a vampire at the head of the much-talked-about-but-never-seen-until-now Authority.

What is Roman after? How does Sookie fit into his plans? Who is Sookie about to make out with in the following new, extended trailer?!? Watch now for new footage.

True Blood Season 5 Teaser

For a lot more on what's to come this season, visit the True Blood spoilers section of our friends at TV Fanatic.

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