Beauty Takes Pain Wednesday, March 19

Cosmetic surgery is expensive, but beauty-conscious Japanese girls and women (especially those obsessed with a more "Western" look) have low-priced workarounds to choose from — as uncovered in January by the fashion blogger Liz Katz. To wit: $63 …

Technological Know-How at Work Wednesday, March 19

Hard-core pornography fans are split (according to a January report on Salon.com) on whether they want male actors to use condoms, but California's Falcon Studios has the technology to serve both audiences. Falcon's actors wear them, but in some …

Science Fair Wednesday, March 19

Security and law enforcement agencies are looking beyond traditional biometric identification techniques (such as the accurate but obtrusive fingerprint and iris scans and unobtrusive yet questionably accurate facial-recognition) and, based on …

Leading Economic Indicators Wednesday, March 19

Farming continues to be a noble but grueling existence for rural residents of China, who work for only about $1,300 a year, but in one village (Jianshe, in southwest Sichuan province), farmers have established a co-operative capitalist model. In …

Witness to the Prosecution Wednesday, February 19

Thoughts from a week in 
the courtroom watching 
the Michael Dunn trial

Go Underground Wednesday, March 19

With property values sky-high in posh London boroughs like Chelsea and Kensington, some super-wealthy residents desiring to expand — and who might ordinarily be forced to build up higher — are building down, constructing elaborate, multistory …

Costs of Spain's Collapse Wednesday, March 19

London's Daily Mail reported in March that Spain may have as many as 2,900 recently abandoned "villages" (areas of land with clusters of houses) deserted by owners forced into cities to find work in the current recession — and that speculators …

Faster! Faster! Wednesday, March 19

NOTW has reported on the staggeringly large amounts of money to be made by financial trading firms that execute buys and sells even a split-second before another firm. In January, The Wall Street Journal reported the "race to zero" ("zero" being …

Beyond 
Troubled Water Wednesday, February 19

Four years after nearly losing his voice, Art Garfunkel and his golden tenor fly again

People With Issues Wednesday, March 19

A more ornate, dedicated subset of cross-dressers — "living dolls" or "maskers" — was captured for a British TV documentary in January (likely to appear on U.S. TV soon). "Secrets of the Living Dolls" follows ordinary men (one, a forklift …