Yesterday marked the 100^th day of the countdown to the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. A large display in Tiananmen Square reminds Beijing citizens, and the world, that the games are drawing near. But even as the unofficial theme song of the games, “We Are Ready,” rung out through the square, many are asking if they actually are.

Though the jury is still out on Chinese promises to loosen foreign media restrictions and improve human rights, the latest concern is the athletes’ ability to do something vital: breathe. As smog continues to hover, world record-holding marathoner, Haile Gebrselassie, has decided not to compete in the games due to fears that the pollution may risk a health effect. The IOC has said that some distance events may be delayed unless the situation changes. Wang Wei, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic Games Organizing Committee says, “We’re quite confident that by August the air quality will be good and appropriate for competition.”

As the 100-day celebration commenced, the plane carrying the Olympic flame landed in Hong Kong yesterday. A relay of the flame will take place throughout the city on Friday.

Despite controversy, the Olympic flame continues to travel. But the heated international tour may have solidified this event as a “been there, done that” idea. Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, has recently said there is a good chance that future Olympic torches may not take international tours.

Hong Kong authorities have banned many activists from entering the city. However, demonstrations are still expected as the death count in Tibet due to Chinese crackdown reaches a reported 200. The Chinese government still insists the number is only 20.

Following Hong Kong, the torch will travel throughout China, including Tibet and the Muslim region of Xinjiang. As China tries to put its best foot forward the last 100 days, the sharpest controversy may be still on the horizon.

Dubbed “the world’s bravest blogger,” Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez just won the prestigious Ortega and Gasset Prize for Digital Journalism, recognizing the defense of freedom and independence in Spanish journalism. Her selection is interesting for a couple reasons: She writes frankly and critically about life in Communist Cuba, and she signs her name on all her stories.

Sanchez’s blog Generacion Y is getting over 1 million hits a month. She says, “I have talked about things like Fidel Castro, and you know how taboo that can be.” Her blog speaks to both the mundane and the striking atrocities of socialism in Cuba.

Since February, Fidel’s brother and successor Raul Castro has lifted bans on consumer electronics (including PCs), cell phones, and staying in luxury tourist hotels.

Internet access, however, is another story. Foreigners, government employees, and academics are allowed Internet accounts administered by the state. Everyone else is dependent upon patchy service, limited access, and long lines. These restrictions don’t stop black-market Internet access or hacked Internet from administered accounts. In order to post her stories, Sanchez sneaks into posh hotel internet cafes and pays high fees to upload her stories from flash drives to the site.

Last week, accessing her site began taking longer and longer; convenient since most Cubans don’t have the cash to pay for Internet access. Government efforts to block her site have been unsuccessful, but the 20 minutes it now takes to load her site from Cuba is dissuading many from reading it. But she is not backing down. “This is just fuel for my fire,” she says.

In 2003 the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a study exploring the “impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule.” The book, Open Networks, Closed Regimes, concluded that “the Internet is not necessarily a threat to authoritarian regimes.”

The federal government has spent about $1.3 billion on abstinence education programs since 1996. A House of Representatives hearing yesterday suggested it has been money wasted.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called the hearing to assess the facts concerning the federal Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Program, an 11-year effort to provide funding to states for abstinence-only sexual education classes. These programs must exclusively teach that abstinence is the best protection from STDs and pregnancy and that “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity.” On the other end of the spectrum, comprehensive sex ed programs inform teens how they can protect themselves should they decide to engage in sexual activity.

The general conclusion of the hearing was rather pat: Abstinence education is idealistic, and it backfires when teens decide to have sex because they have no knowledge of other protection methods. MotherJones blogger Stephanie Mencimer agrees:

About a bazillion studies have all found that not only does abstinence-only education not work to reduce unwed pregnancy or STDs, but that it perpetuates false information about the reliability of the things that do work, disparages gays and lesbians, promotes religion in public schools, and demeans women.

Those “bazillion” studies, all linked off of the ACLU website, provide evidence that abstinence education does not decrease pre-marital sex and may even deter teens from who are sexually active from using protection.

The studies backing their conclusion, however, is not as conclusive as they imply. One study Rep. Henry Waxman referenced, a supposed “rigorous, multi-year, scientific evaluation” has received critique—its data included only 4 of approximately 700 abstinence programs across the country.

Dr. Stan Weed, a witness at the hearing, reported findings from the Institute for Research and Evaluation concluding that abstinence education programs “can reduce teen sexual activity by as much as one half for periods of one to two years.” Their study* involved more than 100 evaluations of programs in 30 states across 15 years. And The Heritage Foundation published a study just Tuesday showing that sexual activity was significantly reduced in 11 of the 15 abstinence programs they reviewed.

*CORRECTION: The paper was not original research on the abstinence programs. It was, however, a comprehensive assessment of 21 other studies regarding various abstinence programs.

Guess what? High testosterone levels have been linked to increased risk-taking in financial traders, i.e. ego-high males make riskier decisions while pushing stocks. Shocking.

Last week Cambridge senior research fellow John Coates and neuroscience professor Joseph Herbert released a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. They tested the testosterone and cortisol levels of 17 male traders from a London firm twice daily for 8 days. Testosterone increases risk-taking, fearlessness, and persistence while cortisol increase timidity, shyness, and an aversion to risks. In attempting to continue to uncover the relation between the endocrine system and financial decisions they naturally targeted this male-dominated career niche for their study: of the 260 traders at this particular London firm, only 4 were women.

For the most part, the study’s three basic conclusions are really not-so-groundbreaking. First, in a world of million-dollar deals and commission-based salaries, Coates concluded that as traders make winning decisions, their testosterone levels continue to increase. One London trader had a 6-day winning streak that Coates tied to a 74% gradual testosterone increase. Switch from the news to ESPN and see this on a court instead of a trading floor: in sports they just call it being “on a roll.”

Second, Coates also found evidence for “winners effect.” Traders who experience continued success become irrational and, due to their high testosterone levels, lose their ability to assess risk correctly. “Pride goes before the fall” was around before the stock market.

And finally, high cortisol levels were found when traders experienced failure, handicapping their ability to get “back in the game” due to fear and uncertainty. But who hasn’t experienced apprehension from former failure?

Where this study edged into the “groundbreaking”, however, is its allusions to biological determinism and possible connections to current market instability. The research team found that traders who start off the day with higher testosterone levels make more money. The Cambridge researchers anticipated that some might suggest the obvious: just have traders take testosterone before a day’s work. Coates strongly discouraged this, responding, “We actually think this molecule is destabilizing risk-taking, rather than optimizing it.”

And as for the current market situation, the study seems to suggest that trader hormones may have more to do with the price of flour or gas than ever imagined. Coates suggests, “Maybe bubbles and crashes are coming from these steroids, maybe if more women and older men were trading, the markets would be more stable.”

Researchers from the University of Liverpool last week labeled the findings of their psychological study “The Madonna Effect,” referencing the apparent increase in third-world parents “dumping” their children into orphanages with the hope that they might be adopted by celebrities.

Late April Madonna is scheduled to appear at court in the southeast African country of Malawi over publicized controversy relating to her adoption of David Banda, a two-year-old boy she met while visiting a Malawian orphanage a year and a half ago. Critics say that Madonna is using her fame to by-pass usual legal processes for non-resident adoption. Earlier this month the Malawi government recommended to the high court that they approve her adoption. David is currently living with Madonna and her husband in London.

Author of the Liverpool study and child psychologist, Professor Kevin Browne, asserts that there has been an increase in international adoption due to media attention surrounding Madonna’s fight for David. He and his associates believe this effect has harmful results. “Some argue that international adoption is a solution to a large number of children in institutional care but we have found the opposite is true.” They report that children are better off in foster care systems in their native countries and that this increased publicity is encouraging parents, even ones who might be able to keep their own children, to give them up in the hope of a “Western” future.

What some are calling the “adoption fever” is boiling. A sampling of international adopting celebs now includes Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Meg Ryan, Mary-Louise Parker, Julie Andrews, and Mia Farrow.

As debate surrounds the pros and cons of this “fever,” AIDS Orphans Day is approaching. The May 7^th campaign hopes to draw attention to the more than 15 million children, estimated to be 20-25 million by 2010, who have been orphaned by AIDS and face malnutrition and increased susceptibility to exploitation, forced labor, prostitution, and child soldiering. FXB International, the host of AIDS Orphans Day reports that fewer than 1 in 10 AIDS orphan receives any external support, many experiencing discrimination that bars them from healthcare and schooling in their native countries.

Some 558 victims (419 children and 139 mothers) are in custody in Eldorado, Texas. Now people debate who – their religion or the state – has victimized them.

The local authorities raided the “Yearnings of Zion Ranch” last Thursday night, responding to phone calls from a 16-year-old girl who said her husband had “beat and hurt” her.

The ranch is a 1,700 acre fenced-in compound started by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a group that broke from the Latter Day Saints when it renounced polygamy in 1890. Warren Jeffs, the FLDS leader, is in the Utah State Prison serving a sentence of 10 years to life for two counts of rape as an accomplice.

Officials still haven’t found the girl who made the call, but since it’s illegal for Texas girls to marry under age 16, officials are now investigating young marriage and child abuse in the community. Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for Texas’ Child Protection Division, says that they are searching for cases of abuse or evidence that the isolated environment of the ranch was detrimental to the children.

Most don’t question the dysfunction of polygamy. (John Llewellyn, retired law enforcement officer and former polygamist, told Mother Jones polygamy is “a barbaric custom.”) The Eldorado case, however, does highlight an old question in regards to polygamy: Does the state have the right to interfere in the religious practice of this community? And if criminal action is suspected, what is appropriate action?

Scott Henson writes, “There’s a big difference between investigating an individual, anonymous complaint from a single teenager, and forcibly taking 419 children away from their homes based on guilt by association.”

In 1953 a raid on a FLDS community in Short Creek, Arizona resulted in the custody of 263 children, 86 women, and 39 men. Some 150 of the children were put into foster care, some never returned to their families. Overall the controversial raid did not effectively fight crime (23 men were placed on probation for one year), but did effectively separate families and increase public sympathy for the Short Creek victims.

UPDATE: Further details about the police raid of the temple were released today. After refusing to assist the police gain access to the temple, 57 FLDS men encircled the building while a SWAT team broke down the doors. Inside investigators found shredded documents and and several disheveled beds on the third floor, supposedly used by members to have sex with underaged girls. No criminal charges have been filed yet.

A survey released last Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that American physicians – historically the fiercest critics of universal health insurance due to fears of “meddlesome bureaucracy, a loss of independence, and lower reimbursements” – may be changing their minds.

Indiana University’s School of Medicine surveyed 2,193 physicians, conducting the “largest survey ever conducted among doctors on the issue of health care financing reform.” The results showed that 59% of the physicians surveyed “support government legislation to establish national health insurance.” In 2002, a survey found only 49% supporting a similar system, so why are doctors changing their minds?

Broadly understood, universal health insurance is provided by a single federally-administered social insurance fund that guarantees coverage to all, yet allows individuals to make personal decisions about their physician.

Dr. Ronald T. Ackermann, the associate director of the Center at Indiana and the co-author of the study said, “Across the board, more physicians feel that our fragmented and for-profit insurance system is obstructing good patient care, and a majority now support national insurance as the remedy.” Critics cite rising health care costs (now at 7% a year, approximately twice the increase of inflation), and roughly 47 million uninsured Americans as evidence for the deterioration of the system.

As elections approach, health care is currently ranked 3rd in the queue of American voter interests, behind the economy and Iraq. Obama addressed the issue Saturday at a sold-out rally in Missoula, Montana. He promised that congressional member-quality health insurance would be available nationwide by the end of his first term.

Some experts propose that the future of the plan is not as rosy as Obama, or 59% of American physicians, may imagine. Critics worry about increased costs, rationed care, and the constitutional difficulties of requiring citizens to purchase a good from a private party.

Purple pens flew off the shelves in September of 2004 when studies released just prior to the 2004 school year showed that grading in red was “critical”, “harsh” and known to cause “self esteem issues” in children. Purple quickly replaced red as the best color choice for caring teachers.

Today the table has turned. It is now the teacher’s turn to demand they be graded with “purple pens.” On Monday a French court ordered a teacher rating website, www.note2be.com, (similar to the American site www.ratemyteachers.com) to remove all names from its site so that no teachers are personally criticized. The site will be fined 1000 Euros each day it fails to cooperate.

The site, started in late January of 2008, provided a forum for students to rank their teachers with a 6-category rubric: interesting, clear, fair, available, respectful, and motivated. Since it began, an average of 150,000 students have visited the site daily and rated 50,000 teachers.

With the average teacher ranking 14 out of a total 20 points possible (not stellar, but a passing grade) why are French teachers up in arms about this site? They give a few reasons: the site breaks privacy laws, incites public disorder, and breaches “their right to be judged only by superiors.” The country’s educational establishment denounced the site as “public lynching” and the court declared: “The exercise of freedom of information and of expression has a limit that it does not damage teaching activities.”

Entering the “rights” ring, the owners of the website have thrown a rather hefty claim back. They call it a right to “free speech.” The French court seemed to think the “right to be judged only by superiors” trumps in this case, however. Free speech is sometimes just too “red.”

Some claim the Smithsonian is enshrining criminals in its new National Portrait Gallery exhibit: “Recognize! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture.” Along with photography, painting, film and poetry, the exhibit includes four 20 by 6 foot graffiti panels.

The artists, Tim “Con” Conlon, 33, and Dave “Arek” Hupp, 34, are venerated graffiti artists from the Washington DC area. They’ve been “tagging” since they were teenagers and gush that graffiti is “a lifestyle, an addiction, a dysfunctional marriage of secrecy and fame.” Hupp brags that he was tagging 400 freight trains a year in his “peak.” In their museum bios they claim to be part of two national graffiti “crews:” Burning America and Never Show Faces.

Is the museum responsible for the behavior it might advocate? Now there’s an age-old question. Frank H. Goodyear III, the exhibition’s curator tells Smithsonian Magazine, “We are not glorifying the illegal activity, but we are acknowledging the larger impact this street tradition has had in contemporary art.” The exhibit is an effort to separate the art of graffiti from its illegal expression in public places.

Citizens have waged graffiti battles since graffiti emerged in the 1970’s. Anti-graffiti task forces and laws making it illegal to sell spray-paint to minors have been somewhat successful. Other efforts – a New York attempt to for anyone under 21 to possess spray-paint or permanent markers (challenged by none other than hip hop fashion guru Marc Ecko) or a mayoral suggestion that the city release wolves into subway storage yards – have not held. People argue against graffiti using “Broken Window Effect” argument, theorizing that disorder and crime are linked: A broken window or graffiti-covered wall stimulates more serious crimes.

The Smithsonian says the exhibit, open until October 26^th, merely recognizes an influential urban art form. An Annapolis opinion editorial disagrees: “Now there’s a deterrent for would-be vandals: telling them that if they mark up enough grocery stores and trains, their work could someday be worth displaying in the museum where they keep Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington.”

After 23 million albums and 15 years of making music, Radiohead is going green. The British rock band recently released a statement saying that plans for their 2008 tour include efforts to “reduce their carbon footprint.” After an evaluation from an eco-consulting group, Radiohead decided to sea freight their gear (saving 47 tons of CO2) and encourage fans to carpool to concerts (reducing around 22% of a concert’s overall CO2 output).

Common reaction to Radiohead’s eco-ethics? The same reaction most green efforts are getting: “Cool.” Recently, however, a few have been brave enough to call this sexy movement something else: “ironic.”

Green is hip, from cradle to grave. Green cemeteries reduce the use of harmful chemicals and non-decomposing caskets are a popular green alternative. Bamboo bicycles use all-natural resources. Green graffiti uses grass to make its mark instead of toxic spray paint. Peanut butter and jelly is hyped as an eco-friendly lunch. The PB and J Campaign says eating one instead of tuna or a burger reduces carbon emission by 2.5 pounds.

It’s no surprise that “ecoanxiety” is growing. Last week the New York Times delved into the lives of 9000-plus EcoMoms with their cold-water laundry, waste-free school lunches, locally-grown dinners, energy-efficient power strips, and even recycled bath water. The women occasionally judge each other for having freshly cut flowers and wall-to-wall carpeting, but one SUV driver said, “It doesn’t fill me with guilt. I think about all the things I’ve done so far.”

Laura McKenna, a political science professor from New Jersey, says the irony of the hip green movement is that the truly green are the “totally unhip.” She says the real environment-lovers are those who wear old clothes, don’t renovate bathrooms, and shop at garage sales. Her advice to the EcoMoms and environmentally anxious graffiti artists: “Stop recycling your San Pellegrino bottles and drink tap water.”