Noted Israeli plastic surgeon Eyal Gur said in August that he expects approval next year for his revolutionary breast-lift procedure ("an internal bra") in which an actual thin titanium bra-like frame is implanted just under the skin with silicone cups to hold the breasts up. Dr. Gur said the procedure will be quicker (40 minutes long), less invasive (local anesthesia only) and less expensive (no hospital stay) than today's breast lifts.
Voices: Last year, William McCartney-Moore, 9, was rushed to the hospital in York, England, following a seizure and, after surgery, was mute for several weeks, until he finally spoke, not in his strong "Yorkshire" accent but in "the Queen's English" as his mother described it (though his accent returned shortly).
The outcome was similar for Czech race-car driver Matej Kus, 18, who was knocked out cold in a UK speedway accident in September, only to awaken speaking not in his habitually broken English, but with flawless diction. (His new "dialect" lasted only a few days, and Kus says that he remembers none of it.)
Endangered! Biologists who have been studying "Lonesome George," the sole survivor of a species of Galapagos Island tortoises, told Reuters News Service in July that they are skeptical he will ever mate, even though he may live another 100 years. After so many abortive attempts to pair him with a female (even having randy young male and female tortoises demonstrate mating for him), they say George remains totally uninterested.
And in Australia, a turtle species named in 1990 for Steve Irwin is now thought to be growing endangered, according to an Australian Associated Press dispatch in August. The "Elseya irwini" is one of a few turtles that respirate through their excretory openings.
