17 Day Diet Plan: Even Hotter Than Before!

A few months ago we posted about a hot new diet called the 17 Day Diet. We figured it was just a New Year's weight loss fad that would quickly fade in popularity. Well, the exact opposite has happened: the online buzz around the 17 Day Diet has skyrocketed!

That's mainly because it's been talked about quite a bit on Dr. Phil, various news programs, and is being heavily promoted by its creator, Dr. Michael Moreno. Right now people are looking for fast, easy ways to get rid of their winter flab, so online searches related to the new diet are exploding.

Despite the name, this is not really a 17 day diet... it's a diet that's based around 17-day cycles that involve eating different types of food in varying amounts. Like nearly all half-decent "quick weight loss" diets it involves cutting out most carbs at first, especially the bad ones, and then re-incorporating good carbs later on after you've lost some pounds.

According to Dr Moreno, the 17 Day Diet is "probably the only diet that is for everybody." Um... yeah right. Many experts believe it's basically just a rehash of established dieting techniques and is, in reality, not all that unique at all. Nearly all modern quick fix diets involve cutting calories by cutting out processed sugars, flours, alcohol, etc. and focusing on protein, healthy fats, and good carbs like whole grains, sweet potatoes, etc.

And sorry if you're looking for an easy, "effortless" weight loss plan. This ain't it. Even the 17 Day Diet requires doing regular exercise. No amount of "metabolism confusion through dieting" is gonna burn off that stubborn belly fat by itself!

Learn some mo': 17-day diet works for some, as do most diets

Hangover 2 Trailer Pulled From Theaters

The Hangover was one of the funniest movies ever made and definitely one of the best "Vegas movies" of all time. Now the trailer for the sequel, The Hangover 2, has run into some problems. In fact, the raunchy ad has been pulled from theaters because of problems with the Motion Picture Association of America and a few pissed-off parents.

Apparently the biggest problem involves a scene where a Bangkok monkey begins to perform an "adult act" on a water bottle. That's bad enough (and just hilarious!) but then Alan says:

"When a monkey nibbles on a weenus, it's funny in any language."

The trailer also involves large amounts of pig blood, bad words, and Mr. Chow. Awesome, but we can understand why some parents wouldn't want little Timmy to see it.

According to Warner Bros:

"In our haste to meet the placement schedule for this trailer, we failed to properly vet the final version with the MPAA... We acted immediately to correct the mistake and removed the trailer from screens."

Yeah right, we're sure it was a mistake. Because of this little "mistake" the interwebs are all abuzz about the new movie. It's called free publicity.... lots and LOTS of free publicity. Plus, we would be kind of disappointed if the first official trailer didn't have stuff that pissed off a large percentage of the audience...

Learn some mo': Hangover Part II Trailer Pulled From Theaters for Wiener-Nibbling Monkey

Marijuana Chemical Will Be the Next Aspirin

A special form of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, could be the new "aspirin" according to new scientific research. This week scientists announced that they have found a way to take advantage of the amazing pain-killing effects of cannabis without causing the user to become "high" from it.

They say that a synthetic form of THC can be made that targets only the part of the human nervous system that deals with neuromotor activity, pain sensation, muscle relaxation and anxiety. They say that the new THC pills could be a safer alternative to aspirin and other pain killers, especially for those people who are highly sensitive to common drugs.

The "non-psychotropic cannabinoids" could also provide a safer, 100% legal pain-killing alternative to patients who use medical marijuana. Hopefully researchers will be able to begin testing the new drug soon.

Learn some mo': Cannabis-like drugs could kill pain without the high

Google Releases "+1" Social Search

Google is taking another crack at becoming a major player in online social search with a new "+1" feature. The company's other attempts at harnessing social networking -- including Google Wave, Google Buzz, and Orkut -- were considered failures for the most part. Many experts say that Google is great at organizing information with computers and complex algorithms... not so much with social networking functions (and we tend to agree!).

The new "+1" button on Google search results is basically a social layer that allows you to give your stamp of approval for a web page. It's designed to show people in your online social network -- including friends and Gmail contacts -- what you consider to be the best stuff on the Web.

Google hopes that the +1 feature will allow them to harness human opinion to improve personalized search results. Also it may, if successful, allow them to compete more with Facebook in the social search arena. According to SEO/search engine expert Danny Sullivan:

"It's a killer combination if you put them both together, and I think that's where Google's big challenge will be in all of this... They don't still seem to get the whole social aspect of things. They don't have any expertise in building these hugely successful social products. Facebook does."

It'll be interesting to see how many people actually participate with the +1 system and give their opinions. We certainly hope it doesn't flop like Google Wave did!

Learn some mo': With +1, Google really, really wants to be your friend

hCG Diet Dangers: Mad Cow Disease??

The popularity of the "HCG Diet" has exploded in the past couple of years, especially in the United States and parts of Europe. It basically involves injecting or consuming Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, a female pregnancy hormone, in order to lose weight with little to no effort (theoretically). But now a new study shows that there may be a pretty big risk to taking the stuff: you could get freaking MAD COW DISEASE!!

Researchers found that liquid hCG doses can contain prions, the strange, malformed proteins that cause mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of the brain-destroying illness. That's because the hormone is extracted from the urine of pregnant women and, according to the research, some of them are infected with the prions.

Scary stuff.

hGC has been used as a weight loss aid since the 1950's. But it's really taken off in just the past few years, mainly due to the marketing efforts of various weight loss clinics. Unfortunately there's not a whole lot of scientific evidence that the stuff really works. No one has actually contracted "mad human" disease from hCG injections yet but here's how we look at it: why in the hell would you risk it??

Learn some mo': Popular Weight Loss Gimmick May Give You Mad Cow Disease