- Trans activist claims it’s ‘incredibly offensive’ to say that men are ‘stronger and taller’ than women Fox News
- U.S. Republicans target transgender youth healthcare in legislative push Reuters.com
- Proposed ban on gender-affirming care expanded to include incarcerated Missourians • Missouri Independent Missouri Independent
- There’s a reason Kansas and Missouri lawmakers are attacking trans kids right now | Opinion Kansas City Star
- How Utah lawmakers are making it harder for transgender kids to play sports Salt Lake Tribune
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: taller
A man borrowed $75,000 for leg-lengthening surgery to make him 3 inches taller, report says
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A man who borrowed $75,000 for surgery faces monthly $1,200 payments for the next five years.
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John Lovedale told GQ that “the world seems to bend” for taller men.
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He decided to take out a loan to pay for leg-lengthening surgery to become 3 inches taller.
A man who borrowed $75,000 for leg-lengthening surgery that made him 3 inches taller will spend $1,200 a month on repayments for the next five years, GQ magazine reported.
John Lovedale, in his mid-40s, explained why he went through the painful, months-long surgery. “I noticed that taller people just seem to have it easier. The world seems to bend for them,” he said.
He decided to take the opportunity to become 3 inches taller when he heard about the procedure. Before doing so he was about 5 feet 8.5 inches tall, slightly less than the average height of 5 feet 9 inches.
Lovedale took a loan from the online bank SoFi to pay for the surgery, which costs between $70,000 and $150,000, depending on whether the patient wants to grow by 3, 4, 5, or 6 inches, GQ reported.
The network engineer will now spend $1,200 in repayments for the next five years, but has no regrets, the magazine reported. “People just look at you differently when you’re tall. I already get a lot more looks at the gym,” Lovedale said.
He first heard about the leg-lengthening procedure performed by Kevin Debiparshad on Facebook.
Debiparshad is one of only a handful of surgeons in North America who perform cosmetic leg lengthening. He founded LimbplastX Institute near Las Vegas in 2016, and the clinic’s business boomed during the pandemic, Debiparshad told GQ.
Cosmetic leg lengthening was originally intended to help patients with real conditions, but it is now becoming a more common cosmetic surgery.
The procedure itself sounds excruciating. The doctor breaks the patient’s femurs, or thigh bones, and inserts adjustable metal nails into them. GQ reported that the nails are extended slightly every day for three months with a magnetic remote control.
It can take months to slowly lengthen the bones and for the legs to heal. Debiparshad told GQ: “There’s a mental discipline that you have to have. It’s like training for the marathon.”
The doctor revealed that many of his patients are tech workers from big firms like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta.
Despite the stigma surrounding cosmetic surgery, it appears to become increasingly common for men. The Washington Post reported in January 2020 that men were turning to all kinds of cosmetic procedures in an effort to get ahead in their careers.
Read the original article on Business Insider
Does running make you taller?
Does running make you taller? It’s a question you may have considered when first starting to exercise on a regular basis. It’s a myth. But, like all good stories, it does have a grain of truth in it. We know running is beneficial for your core and spine, in addition to weight loss – all of which can contribute to better posture. This is why some regular runners might appear leaner and longer.
If you’re looking to seem taller by getting slimmer and improving your posture, running is a great exercise for it. All you need is comfortable exercise gear to wear and a pair of running shoes – although perusing our best running watch (opens in new tab) guide is a fine way to track your workouts in more detail. We’ve highlighted some of the science below and consulted industry experts to get the lowdown on running’s relationship with height and posture.
How does running influence your posture?
Running has been found to be beneficial for improving posture over the course of your lifetime. As we age, we tend to hunch as our bones get weaker and our muscles contract, and running can help delay or prevent this.
It’s a great exercise for your spine, according to research published in the journal PLoS One (opens in new tab). Your spine is made up of vertebrae, and in between each one is an intervertebral disk that acts as a shock absorber for the spine. Normally, these disks become less effective with age, but the researchers studied adults between 45 and 60 years old, finding less age-related degeneration in those who ran regularly, keeping you upright and mobile for longer.
Running has a reputation for being bad for your joints – there’s a persistent myth that running is bad for your knees (opens in new tab) – but it’s less well-known that running can be as effective, if not more so, than resistance training when it comes to improving bone density and staving off osteoporosis, according to a University of Missouri study (opens in new tab). This in turn will stop your posture degenerating as you age, maintaining optimum muscle and bone health.
What if you want to improve your posture with running right now, not in 10 or 20 years? If you’ve just begun running, it’s worth making a conscious effort to learn how to run properly (opens in new tab). This will make you faster and more effective on the roads, and have a beneficial effect on your everyday life.
“The muscular adaptations that stem from running could be beneficial for everyday posture,” says Melissa Thompson, an associate professor of health sciences at Fort Lewis College. “Although, running with a bad posture could also reinforce poor posture in everyday life.
”Posture has been shown to have implications in terms of running energetics, with research indicating that poor posture can increase energetic cost. Additionally, posture influences joint loading when running, so there may be an increased risk of injury in runners who exhibit poor posture,” says Thompson.
UK Athletics running coach Lily Canter says: “Frequent running will only affect a person’s posture in everyday life if they are making a conscious effort to correct their posture while running. If you have a better posture when running you are more likely to carry this over into everyday life as it will start to feel more natural.”
How to improve your posture
There are plenty of ways to improve your posture, both in your best running shoes and out of them. Correcting your running form is, pardon the pun, a good first step.
“I see a lot of runners with bad posture and it is the first thing I try to correct,” says Canter. “If you run with slumped shoulders and a curved back you are essentially wasting energy. It is more efficient to have high hips and a straight back so you can propel yourself forward rather than towards the ground.
“Imagine you have a helium balloon tied to the top of your head and it is pulling you upwards. This will help you to maintain a good posture whether you are running, walking or sitting.”
The second factor, says Canter, is to have a strong core, as exercises to strengthen your core may also help your posture over time. Strengthening the muscle groups in the abdominal and lumbar regions of the body (essentially, the muscles surrounding the base of your spine) will help you improve posture and performance at any age.
You might immediately think of doing sit-ups or crunches, but these exercises can place a lot of pressure on your spine as you’re pressing it into the floor during the movement. A safer alternative is holding the plank position, which allows you to strengthen your lower back and abdominal muscles without placing any dangerous pressure on your spine. Check out our guide on how to strengthen your core (opens in new tab) for more information.
While this isn’t strictly running, it’s closely related: performing core-strengthening exercises will improve your running efficiency and economy, allowing you to expend less energy and run more safely, according to research in the journal PLoS One (opens in new tab). Your core strength improves your posture and makes you better at running simultaneously; in turn, running more frequently will strengthen your bones and continue to help your posture as you age.
Further reading
Long-term running in middle-aged men and intervertebral disc health, a cross-sectional pilot study (opens in new tab)
Building Strong Bones: Running May Provide More Benefits Than Resistance Training, Study Finds (opens in new tab)
Effects of 8-week core training on core endurance and running economy (opens in new tab)
iPhone 13 models thicker and heavier, TrueDepth notch slightly taller than iPhone 12 lineup
Apple’s latest iPhone 13 models eschew the company’s long-held “thinner is better” mantra in favor of better camera systems and larger batteries.
While Apple didn’t focus on handset dimensions during Tuesday’s hardware reveal, specifications published to the company’s website show a slight increase in both girth and weight when compared to last year’s iPhone 12 lineup.
All iPhone 13 models come in at 7.65 millimeters (0.30 inches) thick, compared to 7.4mm (0.29 in.) for each iPhone 12 variant.
Weight sees a more significant change. Starting with the largest iPhone 13 Pro, Apple notes a weight of 8.03 ounces (240 grams), which compares to 8.03 oz. (228g) for the iPhone 12 Pro Max. The iPhone 13 Pro sees an increase to 7.19 oz. (204g) from 6.66 oz. (189g) on last year’s model.
Apple’s iPhone 13 comes in at 6.14 oz. (174g), up from iPhone 12’s 5.78 oz. (164g), while the iPhone 13 mini’s 4.97 oz. (141g) compares to the iPhone 12 mini’s 4.76 oz. (135g).
While not a significant change from last year’s lineup, the weight gain might be noticeable for owners who carry their device in pockets or small bags. More interestingly, Apple is slowly moving away from its push for ever-thinner devices, a strategy that sometimes came at the cost of usability.
In return for the weight increase, iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 13 deliver up to 2.5 more hours of battery life when compared to their predecessors, while the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 mini bring an additional 1.5 hours.
The TrueDepth “notch” is also getting a makeover that reduces its footprint by 20%, according to Apple. While the notch is much slimmer than units on current iPhones, it is slightly taller. The added height should be imperceptible unless closely comparing iPhone 13 with an older device like iPhone 12.
Apple’s latest iPhone devices are slated to go up for preorder on Friday, Sept. 17, at 5 a.m. Pacific.
Mount Etna is 100 feet taller than it was 6 months ago
Mount Etna, Europe’s tallest and most active volcano, has erupted so much in the past six months, it has grown about 100 feet (30 meters) in height, satellite images reveal.
The youngest and most active of Etna’s four summit craters — the southeastern crater — is now the tallest part of the volcano, towering 11,013 feet (3,357 m) above sea level, the tallest it has been in recorded history, according to the National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), located at the foot of Mount Etna in Catania, Sicily.
This sudden growth spurt is the result of about 50 eruptions at the southeastern crater since Feb. 16, 2021, which have led to a “conspicuous transformation of the shape of the volcano,” the INGV reported in a translated statement released Aug. 10. Scientists discovered the explosive growth while analyzing images taken by the Earth-imaging Pléiades satellites on July 13 and July 25. The data have an uncertainty of about 10 feet (3 m), the INGV noted.
Related: 5 colossal cones: Biggest volcanoes on Earth
In fact, the southeastern crater is now taller than its “big brother,” the northeastern crater, the tallest peak on Etna for the past 40 years.
After the northeastern crater erupted in 1980 and 1981, it reached a maximum height of 10,990 feet (3,350 m). But that height decreased over the years as the crater’s edges collapsed. As of the summer of 2018, the northeastern crater measured 10,912 feet (3,326 m) tall.
Mount Etna is thought to have started as a submarine volcano that slowly grew above sea level as it erupted, time and again, gradually increasing its height with solidified lava, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory. It’s now largely covered with historic lava flows from eruptions that happened up to 300,000 years ago. To get a digital 3D view of Etna’s summit, go here.
Originally published on Live Science.
SpaceX’s stacked Starship and Super Heavy booster taller than Great Pyramid of Giza – TechCrunch
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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for August 6, 2021. We made it to Friday. High-fives all around. If you own stocks or cryptos, you are wrapping up the week on a high. Crypto prices are rising while some indices are hitting records.
Before we get into the news, don’t forget that TechCrunch is launching another newsletter! The first edition of This Week in Apps by our own Sarah Perez launches Saturday morning and is the place to go for all of your app news goodness. Be sure to sign up here.
Now, the news. — Alex
The TechCrunch Top 3
- SpaceX builds 400-foot rocket: If you were concerned that childish jokes regarding billionaire rocketry were about to die down, fear not: SpaceX has stacked its Starship vehicle on top of a Super Heavy booster. That means a very tall rocket with much oomph. This is the first time that Starship and Super Heavy have come together.
- The changing value of insurtech startups: A few weeks back, TechCrunch asked if the market should be concerned about insurtech valuations. Then they took another hit. We tackled the topic in the wake of Hippo’s public listing, deciding that most public insurtech companies are wealthy enough in cash terms to not sweat the declines. Too much.
- What to expect from Samsung’s next hardware event: Samsung’s impending Unpacked event may be, well, packed. We could see a new Galaxy Fold phone, new watches, wearables from a Google partnership and more. TechCrunch will be covering the event this August 11, so stick close to the site for more.
Startups/VC
- DesignOps is the new DevOps: That’s our take on zeroheight and its new $10 million Series A round. The startup “does for UX what DevOps platforms like GitHub do for building and shipping code, providing a central place to document and manage UX components,” CEO Jerome de Lafargue told TechCrunch.
- 500 Startups backs the Carta for Africa: Carta is an important part of the U.S. startup technology stack, helping keep cap tables and shares in proper order. As Africa’s startup scene expands, it will need something similar. And Raise is building it. Per the startup, most startup equity on the continent is still tracked with paper. It’s time for that to change.
- Healthcare provider API raises $17M: APIs to help companies manage their providers are not new. AgentSync is building something in the space for insurance brokers. Verifiable is pursuing a similar model, but focused on healthcare workers. As with Rapid, what is being replaced are manual processes. Software is good at many things, but alleviating humans from certain types of bullshit work is one of them.
- Card-issuing APIs are coming to Africa: Thanks to the first Zambian company to get into Y Combinator, I hasten to add. The startup in question, Union54, was first launched in 2015 as Zazu, a neobank. But it found the card-issuing space so punitive to work with that it took on that problem, rebranding along the way. Card issuing is a big market in the U.S. and Latin America. Let’s see how it performs in the startup space on a new continent.
- To close out our startup coverage today, TechCrunch has a good and long look at the burgeoning startup hub of Utrecht, that bit of the Netherlands that always looks super gorgeous when you see a photo of it. Enjoy!
Craft your pitch deck around ‘that one thing that can really hook an investor’
We frequently run articles with advice for founders who are working on pitch decks. It’s a fundamental step in every startup’s journey, and there are myriad ways to approach the task.
Michelle Davey of telehealth staffing and services company Wheel and Jordan Nof of Tusk Venture Partners appeared on Extra Crunch Live recently to analyze Wheel’s Series A pitch.
Nof said entrepreneurs should candidly explain to potential investors what they’ll need to believe to back their startup.
” … It takes a lot of guesswork out of the equation for the investor and it reorients them to focus on the right problem set that you’re solving,” he said.
“You get this one shot to kind of influence what they think they need to believe to get an investment here … if you don’t do that … we could get pretty off base.”
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Big Tech Inc.
- Amazon gets win in Indian Supreme Court: Not happy with a planned sale of Indian retail and warehouse chain Future Group to Reliance Retail, the leader in its category, Amazon won a legal reprieve this week when India’s Supreme Court said that a ruling in Singapore to halt the transaction was valid in the country. Seeing a U.S. tech giant argue against consolidation of players in a market may sound ironic, or even hypocritical, but in business it’s better to simply remember that corporations are amoral by nature at best.
- Drama costs at Velodyne rise: Lidar shop Velodyne, a company that went public via a SPAC, is still paying out to cover the price of internal drama and some executive departures. TechCrunch dug into the company’s latest earnings here.
TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing
Image Credits: SEAN GLADWELL (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
We’re reaching out to startup founders to tell us who they turn to when they want the most up-to-date growth marketing practices. Fill out the survey here.
Read one of the testimonials we’ve received below!
Marketer: Tate Lowry, Ranq
Recommended by: Anonymous
Testimonial: “They have been on my radar since their co-owner sold the e-comm website Here Pup. Tate and Perrin knew exactly what my site needed to ensure a realistic growth. They didn’t blow up any promises; they didn’t nickel and dime me along the way. Honest and genuine agencies that actually map out how they can and will help you are far and few between.”
Ring’s new Video Doorbell Pro 2 captures a taller image and has enhanced motion detection
Ring has announced the latest model in its line of video doorbells, the Video Doorbell Pro 2. The Pro 2 is a new top-of-the-line model that comes with a number of enhancements over its predecessor, including a taller field of view and enhanced motion detection capabilities. It is available to preorder for $249.99 starting today, with shipments expected to begin on March 31st, 2021.
The most significant update for the Pro 2 is its new square video capture. First popularized by Google’s Nest Hello and adopted by many other video doorbells, this field of view makes it possible to see who is at your door from head to toe. It also makes it possible to see when packages are left on the ground in front of the doorbell. The Pro 2 captures a 1536 x 1536 pixel image and is the first Ring model to not use the traditional 16:9 wide view.
The second big upgrade is in the Pro 2’s motion detection. Ring is calling this new feature “3D Motion Detection” and says it allows you to “pin point the location and time a motion event begins.” In addition, a new Bird’s Eye View shows you a top-down image of the motion detected, letting you see where someone traversed your property from above. Ring says it’s possible to customize the specific point where the new motion detection and video recording begins, thanks to new radar sensors on the Pro 2. You can also customize other motion and privacy zones, much like you can do with Ring’s other cameras.
Ring also says the Pro 2’s audio features have been improved with an array microphone, and new preset replies can be set for when you’re not home. Those who subscribe to a Ring Protect Plan can utilize Alexa Greetings, which offers a more advanced answering machine service.
Like the prior Video Doorbell Pro, the Pro 2 is a wired model and does not use a battery. That means you need to have doorbell wiring in place or be willing to wire power to it if you want to install it at your door.
Competition in the video doorbell space has heated up a bit in the past few years, with a number of new entrants bringing innovative features to the space. Ring, which can be credited with popularizing the idea of a video doorbell, has mostly been criticized for its privacy policies and police partnerships over the past few years. That hasn’t stopped it from being the most common video doorbell and the de facto brand when people think of this product category. The Pro 2 is Ring’s answer to a lot of those new competitors, and it will be interesting to see how it performs once we’re able to give it a test.
The tall lady in Resident Evil Village is taller than the tallest recorded human
If you’ve been following recent news about Resident Evil Village, the next game in the hit horror video game franchise, you may have heard about Lady Dimitrescu, a very tall woman / probably-vampire who has become very popular.
Seriously, she’s tall — just look at this GIF from Sony. Lady Dimitrescu towers over the other women / probably-vampires in this scene.
A lot of people have wondered exactly how tall Lady Dimitrescu is, apparently, and Kotaku’s Ash Parrish even went to great lengths to estimate that Lady Dimitrescu is 96 inches tall (8 feet). On Monday evening, though, the official Resident Evil Twitter account revealed that Parrish wasn’t even close.
If you include her hat and high heels, Lady Dimitrescu officially stands at a giant 2.9 meters tall, which equates to a height of approximately 9 feet and 6 inches, according to Tomonori Takano, Resident Evil Village’s art director.
Your love for Lady Dimitrescu is loud and clear.
Here’s a message from our RE Village art director Tomonori Takano, along with a very curious fact you may have wondered about: pic.twitter.com/Lj4m5pN2dJ
— Resident Evil (@RE_Games) February 2, 2021
That sounds terrifyingly tall to me — I’m nearly six feet tall, so I’d crane my neck trying to look her in the eye. (I guess that’s the perfect way to get me to expose my neck so she can chomp down on my jugular.)
But myself and a few of my colleagues wanted to get a better idea of just how tall that really is. Here are just a few comparisons:
Basically, she’s really, really tall. But I have just one more question — when Lady Dimitrescu takes off her hat and kicks off her shoes after a long day of hunting humans, how tall is she then? Guess we’ll just have to play Resident Evil Village to see if this very important mystery gets answered.
The game’s out on May 7th, so we won’t have too much longer to wait.