Holy crap it’s December already.  Why didn’t anyone tell me?  With only a couple more weeks until the end of the year, there isn’t a lot of time left for any type of holiday shopping that might need to get done.  Not to mention getting travel plans finalized for the BME New Year’s Eve Party.

Thankfully the news is a little light this week so you’ll still have a few hours to get to the stores before they close.

The first story of the day is one of sadness.  Back on November 19th the Pike River coal mine in New Zealand was rocked by an explosion which resulted in the deaths of 29 miners.  One way that members of the community are handling their grief is through memorial tattoos.

West Coasters are paying a permanent tribute to victims of the Pike River mine disaster.  Greymouth tattooist Nick Reedy said he had done tattoos for about 20 people, marking the deaths of the 29 miners.  ”It’s something people naturally do in remembrance of others and have done for hundreds, if not thousands, of years,” he said.  ”With this latest tragedy … people are doing the same.”  Reedy said he had done some tattoos for free, while other customers had made a donation.  Designs had included mining tools and the yellow ribbon, which had become a symbol of solidarity with the miners and their families.

For the rest of this week’s news, keep on reading…

Last week I posted a story about a professor who was having a camera implanted into the back of his head.  At the time the procedure hadn’t been done, but this week we have video not only of the implant, but also parts of the procedure as well.

New York University photography professor Wafa Bilal had a titanium plate implanted about a week. It was done by someone who normally does body piercings. They used a local anesthetic. A small surveillance camera connects to the base magnetically.

I wasn’t able to find out who did the implant, or even if they want to be publicly acknowledged for the work or not.  It does look like they did a good job though, of course that will be determined on how it holds up with the weight of the camera over long periods of time.

Speaking of using implants in unconventional ways, it seems doctors have found a way to use a piercing that resembles a dermal anchor to assist people who have lost the ability to swallow.

Surgeon Peter Belafsky had been tinkering with ways to treat oropharyngeal dysphagia–a swallowing disorder that when severe can prevent people from being able to swallow at all–for years.  But it wasn’t until he took his two daughters to get their ears pierced–and noticed the woman behind the counter with piercings in her nose, eyebrow, and even cleavage–that he realized how to do it, and a device to manually open and close the esophagus was born.  Described as one of the world’s first medicinal body piercings, the experimental device works by pulling on a tiny metal pin extending out of the skin of the patient’s neck to move the larynx forward and open the esophagus.

“By attaching a tiny titanium rod to a postage stamp-sized plate that we’ve sewn into the neck cartilage, we’ve enabled our patient to safely and without pain pull on the device to move his larynx forward and open the esophagus to allow food and liquid to pass,” Belafsky says. “It’s the first time a person has been able to manually control the entryway to the esophagus.”

Looking closely at the implant you can see they’ve externally threaded the top so the gold colored cap will screw onto it.  It also looks like the cap has a loop on the top, which I’d assume is for a string to assist in pulling open the esophagus.

When it comes to charity drives, we’ve seen quite a few when it comes to tattoo/piercing drives.  This week we have one that is pretty much in line with all the others, and one that is taking things a step further.

Artists working at 281 Tattoo Studio in Edinburg, TX are hoping a toy drive will be able to help out a children’s charity.  Bring in a toy valued at over $25 and you’ll get a free tattoo.

Over in England, Fay Walker is trying something different when it comes to a tattoo charity drive.

“TATTOO Girl” Fay Walker has been inundated with donations after her plan to ink names on the soles of her feet was revealed.  The 27-year-old has been stopped in the street and was given £200 just hours after the Leader reported on her plans to permanently tattoo 50 names on to her size-three feet for charity.

There are still places up for grab on the soles of Faye’s ticklish feet and she is hoping for more bids – as long as they are not rude words.  She said: “I have decided I am going to wait until after Christmas to have the tattoos done and let people get it out of the way and I’m going to have it done in mid-January.  “I have already sold a foot’s worth, 25 names.”

There are still spots up for sale, and Fay’s contact information is posted in the article if you want to have her get your name (or something else) tattooed on her feet.

I normally only cut+paste a small portion of an article just to you the highlights, but this article from December 3rd, 1899 is just too good to trim down.

The present rage among Eastern girls is to have their arms tattooed. A girl at Newport last summer appeared on the bathing beach with bare arms, of course, and on the dimpled flesh was a dainty tattooed design. Since then scores have followed her example.

The girls say when in evening dress they can wear long gloves, and even if the glove is removed a pretty tattooed mark is rather an addition than otherwise. A dainty blue anchor, a shamrock leaf, a heart or arrow, or even a copy of one’s pet dog is a favorite design.

The Hindu used to be the master hand at tattoo work, but his methods were rather harsh. He jabbed the needle in a quarter of an inch with no compunction, and after five minutes most people had to give up and rest. At present in New York there are several girls who make a good living tattooing. They sponge the spot on the arm with cocaine and then, when all feeling has departed, they rapidly use the little needle, and the patient does not suffer in the least.

At present the shamrock done in green is the favorite design, but the American flag is also a popular mark.

Over 100 years later, and I’m still coming across stories written almost exactly like this.

A good example, this article talking about the latest trend:  stretching your earlobes.  Since it’s Friday and almost the end of the work day, why don’t you grab a drink before reading this article.  Then, take a sip every time the author uses the term “gauge” in place of “stretch”.   (Warning: If you’re drinking alcohol you may end up drunk by the end of it)  Here’s a small sample.

People stretch their earlobes for a variety of reasons, Burnidge said. Some like the aesthetics of gauges and the ability for self-expression, while others like the primitive look of them.Western junior Canaan Folk-Reinke has been gauging her earlobes since she was a sophomore in high school. She currently wears 00g, or 10 millimeter gauges.

My apologies if you get alcohol poisoning.

When it comes to discussing the risks involved in getting a tattoo, most articles focus on cross-contamination and unsterilized equipment.  What is often neglected is the risks inherent in some types of inks.  The interesting part of this story is that it is coming from a vegetarian news site, which focuses on the fact that some tattoo inks are not vegan friendly.

Black pigments, derived from kerosene soot and burned animal bones, are considered to pose minimal health risks…that isif you don’t mind walking around with charred critter remains under your skin for an indefinite period of time. While you can even try your hand at making your own DIY black pigment using India ink from an art store, be forewarned that while many modern versions are made with burned wood and/or resin, some are still made with bones…so read the label.

Now I’m not saying that all inks are bad, so don’t shoot me if you think the writer of the article is in the wrong about any of their claims.

Finally, it’s time for the celebrity round-up.  This week there is actually a somewhat interesting story buried within the madness that is celebrity news.

British singer Kerry Katona has opened up in an interview as to why she got her children’s names tattooed on her wrists.  It seems that she’s continually struggled with self-harm and cutting problems so she got the tattoos to remind herself that she has to take care of her children.

Of course with every thoughtful story about a celebrity, there are 100 ones about useless crap.

While Kerry’s wrist tattoo is a coping mechanism to help with her issues, The Jersey Shore “star” Angelina’s wrist tattoo is because she felt that the editing on the show made her look bad.  I’ve seen Jersey Shore.  If the editing was intended to make her look bad, then why wasn’t there any editing to make the others look good?

While I’ll admit to having seen Jersey Shore, I can honestly say I’ve never heard of this next person before in my entire life.  Supposedly there’s a show called Teen Mom, and one of the moms on the show recently had her kid taken away by child services.  She has since gotten her child back, but not before getting a portrait of her daughter on her stomach.

Fans of Inception will likely recognize Tom Hardy from his role in the film.  Do yourself a favor and check out Bronson, Hardy is brilliant in it.  Hardy himself is no stranger to getting tattooed and this week he went out while on the set of his latest film and got himself a new one.

The 33-year-old actor recently added a Union Jack tattoo on his upper left chest when he popped into the shop, one of his favorite local hangouts while he’s been filming This Means War.

In the final story of the day, while it isn’t really celebrity news, thefrisky.com has put together a collection of the ten best Golden Girls tattoos.  I’d have to say #6 and #9 are my favorites.

And thus concludes our broadcasting day here at ModBlog.  Remember to send in any links you find to news stories from around the world.

Have a great weekend everyone, and good luck getting everything on your shopping lists.

It’s time again for the news of the week.  This week’s edition brings us a modified church, a charity event that became too popular, an actress willing to completely change herself for a role, and much more.

First off is what is probably the coolest implant related news ModBlog has seen in a long time.  Implant grade LED lights.

The LED arrays were developed by John Rogers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and they can twist and stretch by as much as 75%. Coated in thin silicon rubber, they’re also waterproof and safe to implant under the skin.

Now the article goes on to describe them as “LED Tattoos”, but they seem more in line with the silicone implants currently being used by practitioners.  There aren’t too many details given about the power source, but if they’re able to safely embed a battery and/or an activation button into the array, I can think of several people who could put these to some creative uses.

These lights are just the tip of the iceberg of today’s news, so keep on reading to see what else has been going on around the world.

It seems eyeball tattoos have popped up in the news again, this time Portland, Or. where Matthew Gone has colored the whites of his eyes blue and green.

Mr Gone has now gone where few other tattoo lovers have dared by getting his eyes coloured permanently.  He conducted the risky operation by himself at his home, colouring one eye blue and the other green.  ”I patch-tested it and was successful. I had to take the risk. I’ve done that a lot of times before,” Mr Gone said.  ”I’m not crazy. I’m trained. I have a lot of experience.  ”I picked different colours because I like mutations because I have birth defects,” he said, offering no further explanation.

Unfortunately the story doesn’t go into too much detail, although there is a brief video interview with Matt.  I’m positive ModBlog readers will be able to identify Matt, as he’s got a pretty distinctive look, and can hopefully give us a little more information than the article did.

Speaking of distinctive looks, if you’ve got a facial tattoo that can be identified easily, it’s probably not a good idea to go around stealing phones from people; especially if the tattoo you have is lettering on your forehead that says “I’m me”.

What better way to identify yourself to police when you’re wanted for a crime than to get the phrase “I’m Me” tattooed across your forehead?  Well, that’s how easy it was for South Florida police to spot Joseph Williams, 19, who was wanted for a string of iPhone phone robberies.  Williams was wanted in connection with the theft of nearly two dozen iPhones throughout South Florida. Investigators said Williams began his mini-crime spree Aug. 20 and struck at least 19 times, according to WFOR.  Police reports indicate that Williams would casually walk into an AT&T store, find the iPhone display and then snatch one or two phones from the security cables before scurrying out of the store.

Thankfully not all tattoo related ideas are bad.  In Heckler, IL. Eternal Ink Tattoo Studio recently offered free pink ribbon tattoos to anyone who wanted one.  The idea was to raise awareness in the community.

Eric Catalano thought he was making a small gesture to support people affected by breast cancer. He thought his quiet offer of free pink ribbon tattoos might bring 50 people to his studio in tiny Hecker, Illinois.

So on October 14, he and his crew started waiving the normal $30 charge for the tiny ribbons, and the response has been enormous. By the end of the day on Thursday, October 21, they had given out 418 tattoos, Catalano says, and were still working Friday morning. So many people have shown up, that the studio has turned away regular customers to focus on the pink ribbons.

Heading down under, the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne is hosting a new photography exhibit about Holocaust survivors and their tattoos.

A highlight of a visit to the Jewish Holocaust Centre (JHC) is the opportunity to interact with Holocaust survivors, eyewitnesses to history. Most poignant is when the survivors who were tattooed roll up their sleeves and show visitors their permanent marker – the tattoo from Auschwitz.  Not all survivors have tattoos. Tattooing was done at Auschwitz but only to prisoners who were ‘selected’ to be slaves rather than gassed. As the late survivor Lou Sokolow, who was a tattooist in Auschwitz, reports in his video testimony,  ‘A guy who got a number was lucky. Why? Because he didn’t go straight away to the crematoria.’  Most survivors who were branded by the Nazis like cattle do not see it as a badge of shame. On the contrary, they feel that it demonstrates the inhumanity of the Nazi perpetrators.

I highly encourage anyone who is in or can get to Melbourn, to go and check out this exhibit.

Another article from Australia, this time Sydney, takes a look at tattoos and piercings in the workplace.  It actually is a somewhat fair and balanced article, which runs counter to a lot of other articles that come up about modifications all over the world.

Piercings and tattoos are more common than ever and this is proving to be a challenge for some employers. Body art might be acceptable out of the workplace, but for many companies, it creates issues when the person is out meeting clients.  The Pew Research Centre in the United States has found that about a third of Generation Next, the generation that grew up with mobile phones, the internet and personal computers, will have a tattoo. Some more research, again out of the US, found that 23 per cent of university students had one to three tattoos, and 51 per cent had one or more piercings (other than earlobes) and yet another one showed that 32 per cent of Gen Xers have tattoos.

The article goes on to discuss that while a lot of people are accepting of tattoos/piercings, when it comes to customer service, having “FUCK YOU” tattooed on your forehead might make it difficult to get a job.

Of course, for every positive (or even neutral) article, there are several negative ones.  According to the Guardian in the UK, women claiming that their “tatts” are spiritual in any way, especially if they do yoga, are basically telling the world that they’re not classy in any way.

While my feelings for Katona have never gone further than the “meh” mark on the emotional dial, few things highlight blatant class snobbery about certain issues as the conjunction of the mockery of Katona’s tattoos in the tabloids and the cod-spiritual smugness surrounding tattoos one sees in one’s yoga class. Yet where one kind is indicative of one’s higher devotion, the other is laughable, when some of the more democratic among us might think that latter description applies to all equally. Similarly, one could argue that if these be-tattooed yogic folk were really so spiritual, they wouldn’t feel the need to inform everyone else of this or remind themselves of it, via the medium of the tattoo. Moreover, some innocently untattooed people in the yoga class – who would otherwise be totally ace at balancing – find the light of self-satisfaction that radiates off their classmates’ tattoos is so blinding they topple over. Were it not for the tattoos, honestly, they’d be able to stand on one foot for hours and truly focus and not think once about how they forgot to set the Sky+ for The Daily Show a-bloody-gain.

It seems this back and forth in the news will probably never end, although we can hope right?

Now, in the past few ModBlog news posts, there has been a lot of discussion about the young woman who was suspended from high school for having her nostril pierced.  There definitely was a mixed reaction to the case as some felt that her belonging to the Church of Body Modification should be recognized by the school board.  Some felt the school shouldn’t even care that much, as it’s just a nostril piercing and isn’t doing anybody any harm.  Then there were those who felt that because she was a minor, and in public school, she should follow the dress code laid out by the school.  The question I post is this; if you think that she should obey the dress code of the school because she’s in high school, would you feel the same way if your college suddenly applied similar rules?  That’s the question students at Fayetteville Technical Community College in North Carolina may be facing as the board of trustees is looking into revising the school’s policies with regards to tattoos and piercings.

Under existing policies, the school has a general, non-specific dress code. A more specific dress code could help the students said trustee Susie S. Pugh, chairwoman of the school’s curriculum committee. That committee is considering the dress code.

“Right now, with the styles and the piercings and everything that’s going on with them, right now, we’re concerned that when you go to look for a job, with all of these, you aren’t going to be successful,” she said.

While the board is examining the possibly outcomes they are recognizing that trying to impose these rules on adults may be met with some form of legal action.

In the final news story of the day, a tattoo studio in Victoria, TX. has taken up the role of a ministry as well as a studio.  The owners of Timeless Tattoo Studio are a couple of born again christians, who have chosen to spread their beliefs through their work.

As the only Christian tattoo studio in Victoria, Mallette, 38, and Martin, 20, said their clients can expect much more than a professional and all-custom tattoo experience in their store. In addition to Timeless Tattoo’s spa-like ambience, the studio provides a Bible study and prayer room on-site, and adheres to a company policy against performing tattoos that reflect demonic, satanic, or occult messages. They also will not tattoo on private areas of the body.

Regardless of whether Christians see tattooing as right or wrong, Mallette said Christians of every stripe participate in body modification.  ”Prior to being saved, people would ask me whether I thought tattooing was wrong, and I would tell them there are a lot of forms of body modification that people do without even thinking about it: They pierce their ears, cut their hair, have breast implants and face lifts, they get their nails done, and some women even tattoo eye liner and lip liner on their face,” Mallette said. “Society sees those as normal, so where’s the line?”  For now, Mallette and Martin see their body art and piercings as a way to reach people who wouldn’t traditionally be excited about God.  ”I think people of all walks can be used to minister now, and God may be using us to reach people who would never step foot in a church otherwise,” she said.

Now while I said that was the final “news” story of the day, don’t think I haven’t forgotten about everyone’s favorite section, the celebrity news!

A few weeks back Kelly Osbourne announced that she was getting some of her tattoos removed.  Well it probably came at a good time for her, as when she tried to enter a gym in Tokyo she was refused admission based on her tattoos.

Now when it comes to celebrity tattoos, most of the time the media just posts a story along the lines of “LOOK AT ______’s NEW TATTOO!  HE/SHE’s A REBEL”, or something to that effect.  Well color me shocked when I found this story about Emma Stone’s new tattoo.

Emma Stone has just revealed that Paul McCartney helped design her new tattoo, which she is getting for her family.  The 21-year-old actress says that she approached the former Beatle and asked him for the favor after her mother had recovered from a tough battle with cancer.   ”Two years ago . . . . she got diagnosed with breast cancer,” Stone explained on The Late Show With David Letterman. “And she’s out of the woods now, which is amazing. We’ve never gotten tattoos before, and probably never will again.”  She went on to say: “My mom’s favorite song is ‘Blackbird’, and it’s my favorite song as well. I wrote a letter to Paul McCartney asking him if he would draw two little bird feet, because he wrote the song. And yesterday, he sent them to me.”

Finally, when it comes to getting ready for a part, actors have been known to take some drastic measures.  DeNiro gained a ton of weight for Raging Bull, Christian Bale lost a near unhealthy amount of weight for his role in the Machinist, only to bulk up in a few short months to play the role of Batman, and Noomi Rapace went out and got several piercings for her role in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  Well it seems that Mara Rooney, the actress chosen to portray the same role that Noomi portrayed, has also undergone some changes that puts her in the same league with the others.

The actress was actually chosen over Scarlet Johansson for the leading role. All thanks to the director, David Fincher. For the upcoming film, Mara Rooney had to bleach her eyebrows and dye her hair as dark black is it could get. She also had to go get her nipples pierced for a topless scene in the flick.

What is actually sad for this young actress is she has spent most of her time in her hotel room in beautiful Sweden. The reason being the director wants to keep her hidden from the public eye in order to make sure her look isn’t seen yet. However, a photo has been leaked out of her wearing a pierced lip.

So that’s it for the news this week.  As always, if you find a news story that you think would fit in with the News of the Week, just click here to submit the link.

I hope everyone has a great weekend, and I’ll see you all back here again on Monday.