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You can’t watch a crime drama on TV, or the news (think Anna Nicole Smith) for very long nowadays without hearing about DNA. DNA testing can tell who fathered a child. It can rescue an innocent inmate from prison, or prove the case against a criminal. DNA testing can give you an idea of certain diseases you are more likely to develop than other people. DNA can also link you with your ancestors and show you where they might have come from.

But what exactly is DNA? Deoxyribonucleic Acid is a sort of blueprint for every cell in your body. Your genes are made from DNA. You get half from your mother, and half from your father. The only two people that can have identical DNA are identical twins. In every other case, DNA is a so-called genetic fingerprint. Because it is unique, police and prosecutors look to DNA samples to help catch and convict criminals. In the legal system, DNA samples must be handled carefully.

But people can take their own DNA tests in the privacy of their homes. A blood sample is not necessary. All that is needed is a few cells from the lining of the cheek. A scraping of the lining taken with a swab is enough to do DNA testing. It is most commonly used to determine paternity.

The kit for the test can be ordered online, or bought at a drugstore. The cost for a simple paternity test runs between $100 and $250. You take your own sample, and send it to the lab. If you are trying to establish paternity, you also need a swab of the possible father’s cheek, and of the child’s cheek. Most labs that do this testing say that they can tell you with greater than 99% accuracy if the person sampled is the child’s father, and 100% if he is not.

There are also ways to get the possible father’s DNA surreptitiously. Sometimes labs can run the test from a piece of chewed gum, or a hair. Each lab is different, and less-than-perfect samples cost hundreds of dollars more to test.

What else can you do at home? You can prove other familial relationships if there is some question. You can also have your DNA tested to look into your ancestry. The National Geographic Society is even collecting DNA samples from all over the world to create a sort of genetic world map. You can participate by conducting an at-home DNA test, which costs about $100.

Some other types of home DNA testing are probably best avoided. One company says it can tell you as early as 7 to 8 weeks into a pregnancy what the sex of the unborn baby will be. This is allegedly possible because some of the baby’s blood mixes in with the mother’s blood. You take a sample of the mother’s blood at home. If the lab finds a Y chromosome in any of the sample, the baby will be a boy, because only males have a Y chromosome. If no Y chromosome is found, the baby will be a girl. This whole area of DNA testing is not proven, and there are lawsuits at the current time against companies that reported the unborn child’s sex incorrectly. There are also ethical issues even if this test were to be perfect.

Another category of DNA testing exists, genetic testing for markers of certain medical conditions. Usually, if this kind of test is necessary, your doctor will order it, and it will be done in a lab that is certified to give accurate results. More importantly, your doctor can advise you what the test means. If you have a certain gene, you have an increased probability of developing a certain disease. It doesn’t mean you will get the disease, and a negative test does not mean you won’t.

You can do these tests at home. But you will not have anyone to explain what the results really mean. Still, people do these tests, sometimes for privacy, or in order to prevent health insurance companies from knowing the results and perhaps raising their rates. But to test for the right conditions and actually understand what the results mean, you should see your doctor, or in some cases, a geneticist.

As of today, at-home DNA testing is best used to determine paternity or other familial relationships when there is no legal requirement, or to get information about your ancestry.

Jason Kay is a biomedical engineer and provides information and advice on current medical technology. He recommends that you learn more about home DNA testing kits at HomeDNATestingKits.net

Someone needs to make it very clear — to kids and adults of all ages — that benzodiazepines mixed with other drugs or alcohol kills a lot of people every year. In fact, if you’re regularly mixing benzos with other drugs or alcohol, you’re probably lucky if you only become dependent and need to get off them.

This week in Tampa, FL, a young adult found his 42-year-old father dead in his bedroom, his face and ears partially eaten off by the family’s three pit bull puppies. A family friend said the deceased had spent the evening drinking heavily, and had then taken Xanax, one of the worst of the benzo’s, before going to sleep. Authorities haven’t yet determined if the man was still alive when the dogs got at him, but chances are he wasn’t. After drinking excessive alcohol and taking Xanax, both of which are central nervous system (CNS) depressants, it’s too late for drug detox, and one’s chances of survival can be slim to none without emergency medical aid.

Meanwhile, up in Brooksville, FL, just north of Tampa, a 17-year-old boy was arrested for trying to sell Xanax pills to another kid at the local high school. The wanna-be pusher was arrested and taken to jail. It wasn’t reported where he got the more than two dozen Xanax pills, but data from law enforcement and drug detox and rehab providers indicates a lot of prescription drugs are swiped from parents and relatives. It’s also becoming all too easy for kids to get prescriptions from doctors by faking symptoms — they see it in movies and on TV all the time — and more and more kids are getting dependent on benzos and winding up in drug detox centers themselves. Drug detox for kids as young as 12 is becoming more prevalent across the US.

Xanax is one of the most abused benzodiazepines around, frequently associated with recreational polydrug mishaps. Judging from statistics, the danger message is not being delivered strongly enough that two or more CNS depressants have cumulative effects, and can shut down your breathing and your heart. Just think Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith or even Elvis Presley, who died with 14 drugs in his system.

CNS depressants include benzos, opiates such as heroin, morphine and methadone, and prescription painkillers such as Vicodin, Percocet or OxyContin. Dependencies and addictions to all these kinds of drugs are routinely treated at drug detox centers across the country.

Alcohol is also a CNS depressant and should never be mixed with benzos. Cocaine, normally associated with “speeding up” rather than slowing down one’s system, has frequently figured in lethal drug toxicities when mixed with Xanax or other benzos.

Benzos are just plain dangerous drugs. Dependency is extremely common, especially when taken for extended periods of time, but can occur in a surprisingly short time, too. You know you’re dependent if you get withdrawal symptoms when you stop taking it. Withdrawal from Xanax can cause agitation, panic attacks, severe anxiety, muscle cramps, and seizures which can be life-threatening. Medical drug detox is an absolute must for anyone who has become dependent on benzos.

The bottom line is, when Xanax or any benzodiazepine is prescribed, the doctor or the pharmacist should make absolutely sure that the person understands all the dangers. Of course, in a perfect world, no one would be taking these drugs at all. But as long as we live in an imperfect world, someone needs to sit everyone down, especially high school kids, and give them the straight facts about the dangers of benzodiazepines so they really get it once and for all. No kid should have to grow up knowing they contributed to someone’s trip to an emergency ward, or worse, the morgue. They shouldn’t have to live with the responsibility of anyone needing a drug detox program, either.

Rod MacTaggart is a freelance writer who contributes articles on health.

info@drugrehabreferral.com

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The answer to this question often depends on who you ask. By some definitions, socialites have been among us as long as humans have had urban centers – which means that the first socialites probably appeared on the scene in the city of Harappa in present-day Pakistan well over 5000 years ago. Socialites were no doubt fixtures in ancient Rome, since by at least one definition, socialites are “well-born” women who are married to wealthy, prominent men who give large, extravagant parties – although in that male-dominated society, it is doubtful that even wealthy Roman women had much to say in the planning of such events.

At their best, socialites today are those who use their wealth, influence and social skills to promote and raise money for charitable, socially-responsible and progressive causes. At their worst, they provide fodder for gossip columnists with their outrageous, extravagant misbehavior and arrogance in public.

Interestingly, Americans had little appetite for stories of socialites for the half-century between 1930 and 1980; ostentatious and arrogant displays of wealth were considered my most middle-class Americans to be in poor taste. Occasionally in the late 1950s and early 60s, one might hear occasionally about “jet-setters” (celebrated in Frank Sinatra’s performance of Come Fly With Me by songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen), but generally, socialites were related to the “Society” or “Style” sections of Sunday newspapers.

That all changed during the 1980s. For the next quarter-century, socialites – people who had either made a great deal of money or who had inherited it – became almost everyday news. Additionally, the line distinguishing socialites from celebrity entertainers became increasingly blurred. People such as the late Anna Nicole Smith and heiress Paris Hilton, who had done nothing more than come into money, became “celebrities.”

Today, the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way. After a generation of ostentatious displays of wealth and conspicuous consumption by the priviledged, average working Americans are growing increasingly impatient and weary of socialites. To their credit, some socialites are taking note of the many serious problems in the country and the world today that have resulted from the last thirty years and are again using their power, influence and money to effect positive change – an example of socialites at their best.

Anne Harvester writes about Social News, Culture, and Interest Stories from the big apple.

The death of Anna Nicole Smith has at least one valuable outcome, even if it is simply serving as a model of what happens if you die intestate, i. e. without a last will and testament.

One immediate point to take here, by the way, is the youth and vitality of the deceased. Few people who knew her, or knew about her, would have believed on that February morning that later that day they would hear that she was dead.

Wasn’t there something about, “Ye know not the day nor the hour”?

I may have the quote wrong, but you get my drift. It’s best to be prepared at any age if you have real concerns about what is going to happen to your estate, your heirs, or even your remains.

Even if you have not been purposefully following the televised “audition” as some are calling it, it has been hard to escape being exposed to some of the regretful details.

* Multiple claimants for the remains of Anna Nicole Smith – including her mother and at least two boyfriends.

* Multiple claimants for the custody of the child of Anna Nicole Smith – including her mother and at least two boyfriends.

* Multiple claims as to where the remains of Anna Nicole Smith should be buried.

The list goes on, but perhaps worst of all, is the complete uncertainty about the fate of her newborn daughter.

There are lawsuits in progress that may result in large sums of money.

While having an up-to-date last will and testament would not necessarily have solved all of these problems, it could have given the court a clearcut knowledge of her desires and wishes, and that is the ultimate goal of these proceedings…to determine the “will” of the deceased.

Looking at the time, expense, and trouble that this is costing the potential and possible heirs, would-be custodians, and supposed rightful mourners is bad enough, but realizing how much of this cost is being borne by the taxpayers of the state of Florida is adding insult to injury.

Okay, you and I don’t have millions of dollars to allocate upon our deaths, and we are sure that our mother, father, spouse, significant other, ___________ (fill in the blank) knows exactly what are wishes are. Do we really? Is it just and fair to assume that these people know who gets the money in the bank, who gets the house, or where we are to be interred. Is it to be the funeral of a veteran, or the burial of a civilian. Do we want to rest in that lovely cemetery beneath the pines overlooking that beautiful lake in northern Arizona, or ashes sprinkled over the Gulf of Mexico?

Years ago, my father died without a will. He and my mother owned the house they had paid for together over the years where my sister and I were raised. They had a shared bank account and some Certificates of Deposit which contained all the money they had been able to save out of both their paychecks. My mother’s only income was to be her (reduced) portion of my father’s retirement. Under the laws of the state of Florida, my sister and I had equal claim to all of that with our mother.

Fortunately, she had raised us right, and we signed over our rights to the estate without any hesitation or discussion, but, within our own extended family, we have seen the fights that can break out when the “will” of the deceased is not known, and we have seen the divisions and animosity that can develop between previously loving siblings and other family members.

Most of such results can be averted by simply drawing up a last will and testament and clearly stating your desires and wishes. While the services of an attorney, or at least a paralegal, can be invaluable, there are will forms and do-it-yourself last will and testament forms and software available for those who feel that an attorney may be too costly.

Whatever the discomfort of confronting the fact of death or the monetary cost now, however, having a last will and testament will often save a lot more expense and pain in the future.

Donovan Baldwin is a Texas writer and a University of West Florida alumnus. He is a member of Mensa and is retired from the U. S. Army after 21 years of service. In his career, he has held many managerial and supervisory positions. However, his main pleasures have long been writing, nature, .and fitness. In the last few years, he has been able to combine these pleasures by writing poetry and articles on subjects such as health, fitness,yoga, writing, the environment, happiness, self improvement, and weight loss.

You can find information on legal forms and software, including the last will and testament, living will, and living trust, at http://www.legal-forms-supermarket.com/ You can learn more about the importance of having a last will and testament at http://legal-forms-supermarket.com/about/last_will_and_testament.html