I knew this would be one of those stories that would tick people off. Someone turned me on to the Facebook group "30 Reasons Girls Should Call it a Night." I am a Facebook addict and I laughed as I read the list (my favorite is number 17: Every conversation starts with a booming, "DON'T take this the WRONG WAY but.."). Then I got to the pictures. Girls throwing up, falling down and urinating in public places. Wow. I was intrigued that people made these personal and often embarrassing moments so public. We had to investigate. Contrary to what one of my Facebook brethren think, this "tight a**" (thanks, Josh!) knows what college is all about. I went to college and lived the experience to its fullest. In fact, I think I saw my old dorm room in one of those pictures. We turned our findings into a report for Out in the Open.

The first thing I did today was log on to Facebook and check out the comments on the group's "wall." We love it when our stories get people talking and thinking. The responses were fascinating. Many people said that CNN is encouraging people to join the Facebook group by doing this story. Point taken. Others think CNN was unfair to the young women. One young lady said, "They need to get OVER this 'girls drinking epidemic' because its NOT a problem... we are YOUNG, having fun..." But others thought CNN was right on. A woman named Jennifer said, "Actually CNN has a total right to post these photos. I know that sux but you put them out there for everyone to see so you made them public. They blurred out our faces so they covered their a**es."

That leads me to my last point. When journalists do a story on social networking sites, they always walk a fine line. Legally, we can show what's on the site since it is public. But there are other considerations and after long conversations, we decided not to show the faces of the women on the site.

We want to know what you think. Do you think it's fair that we brought this group "out in the open"?

Imagine if you could live longer, be super fit, bear children at age 85 and had the ability to not only be able to run marathons, but to have an unquenchable desire for extreme exercise.

My car keys were nowhere to be found. I checked the usual places and I retraced my steps from the night before. Nothing. My pup, Buddy, has stolen socks and shoes, but he looked innocent. I asked my housemate, Tom, whether he had seen them. He said he hadn't. I got to work using a spare set, but I spent the day wondering whether losing my keys was the first step to losing my mind.

I consulted memory expert Dr. James Lah, an Emory University neurologist. I related the key incident, and he asked me if I usually put them in the same place (I do). He asked if I tend to park my car in the same spot (I do). He said that those habits are how we remember things, and he bet that Tom was the guilty party.

Dr. Lah says some memory lapses are a normal part of aging. If our attention is affected, memories won't be stored efficiently. Fatigue, hormone imbalances, stress, depression, certain prescriptions and distractions can all prevent us from remembering.

We can also have problems retrieving memories. If the storage areas of the brain are damaged by Alzheimer's disease, or a stroke, the brain won't be able to properly recall the information stored in the damaged area.

Lah says it's not unusual to forget names or misplace items occasionally. But forgetting something that you recently did, or forgetting a responsibility that affects your well being - such as not paying bills, may merit a doctor's scrutiny. As our population ages, screening for memory problems will be a critical.

While there are several drugs available for treating Alzheimer's disease memory and thinking problems, Dr. Lah says, excitement is building for neuroprotective treatments that are in the development pipeline, including a vaccine. The hope is that the drugs will prevent and eliminate the brain-clogging deposits that are part of Alzheimer's disease.

Turns out Dr. Lah was right about my keys. Tom had used them to take out the trash and left them in the box where the trash bags were, under the kitchen counter. It's good to know that my mind wasn't the issue... in this case.

Do you worry about your memory? What do you do to keep your memory sharp?

There was a time when my best friend, Sarah, was the "sex lady." Out of college, one of her first jobs was as a sex educator. Sarah was passionate about it. Often, she would bring work home and, like many of us, dump it by the front door. On more than one occasion, I walked into Sarah's apartment and was greeted by a poster sized picture of full-blown chlamydia. I guess when you talk about sex all day, you don't think twice about what you leave in the hallway.

I thought about Sarah and her days as the "sex lady" recently when I took my dog, Bella, to our local dog park. I ran into "Apoo's Mom." (At the dog park, humans don't go by their real names. It's kinda like being in the CIA.) Apoo's mom is a pathologist. She works in women's health. She spends most of her days looking at slides. We got to talking about, you guessed it, STDs. Apoo's mom went to medical school in Europe and then came to the United States to do her residency. She says she is shocked by the STD problem we have in the U.S. "Almost every slide I see has trichomoniasis," sighed my dog park friend as we watched our "children" chase squirrels. "It is really alarming."

Just a few weeks ago, the Centers for Disease Control put out its annual STD report. The CDC estimates that 19 million infections occur each year - that's more infections than the total number of people who live in New York. According to the CDC, the big three STDs are chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. Left untreated, these STDs can lead to infertility and in the case of syphilis, kill you. Nearly half of all infections happen among people ages 15 to 24.

Intrigued, I called Dr. Claire Brindis, professor of pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco. "It is a silent topic," says Dr. Brindis. She says a number of factors contribute to the high numbers. First, young people tend to have "serial relationships" and when the relationship becomes "serious," the rules change and condoms come off. "The condom becomes a symbol of trust," says Brindis. But over the course of time, if someone has a series of monogamous relationships (and has a fling here or there), their risk and their partner's risk increases.

Dr. Brindis also points out that some groups have higher rates than others. According to the CDC report, the rate of chlamydia among African Americans was more than eight times higher than the rate among whites. Dr. Brindis says scientists are still trying to figure out why. She says it could be that African American teens tend to have sex earlier and that they don't have the access to condoms other groups do. Another possibility is that the health care community is just doing a better job screening for STDs. "We have better and less invasive tests," says Brindis.

She says we need to get creative when it comes to educating young people about STDs. She mentioned a program in San Francisco that sends "safe sex" messages to teen's cell phones.

I am curious to hear what you think. Why do you think the STD rates are so high? What do you think needs to be done to lower it?

"My toes wouldn't move. My whole body was completely paralyzed. I had no way to let them know I was awake...I felt the doctor take my hand and I thought oh dear god, they're getting ready to cut my hand."

That's Jodie Stanley describing being awake during surgery. It's a phenomenon called anesthesia awareness. Jodie, a registered nurse, says she had never heard of it until it happened to her. Victims have called it their worst nightmare. "They may remember sounds or conversations in the operating room or they may have excruciating pain or wake up feeling paralyzed, not being able to respond. It's like being alive, but inside a corpse," according to Dr. Peter Sebel of Emory University School of Medicine.

A new movie called "Awake" just came in at No. 4 in the weekend's box office tally. The thriller stars Hayden Christensen as a patient who is fully conscious but physically paralyzed during surgery. The movie's promoters have said, "It will do for anesthesia what 'Jaws' did for swimming in the ocean."

To be clear, anesthesia is very safe, and awareness incidents are rare. Out of the 30 million cases in which anesthesia is used, anesthetic awareness happens in about 1 or 2 cases out of every 1,000 according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Researchers believe that anesthesia awareness is under-reported by 50 percent to 100 percent of the official numbers, says Carol Weihrer, president and founder of the advocacy group Anesthesia Awareness. She bases her numbers on her own experience as an advocate and information she has pulled together from other organizations.

She emphasizes that whenever it does occur, the impact can be traumatic. According to her organization, approximately 50 percent of awareness victims suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

It's definitely a scary risk however remote, but there are certain things that can help reduce your risk of experiencing anesthesia awareness. Brain monitors can help reduce the risk by more than 80 percent, but they are available in only half of operating rooms according to Sebel.
Here are some important points you should address with your doctor before going under:

Operating room brain monitors: Are they available in your facility?
Weight: Your body mass index (BMI) or amount of body fat is a factor. Anecdotally, women and slimmer patients report more awareness.
Age: The older you are, the less anesthesia you need.
Existing disease: Your risk can change, especially with diabetes or cancer.
Medications/herbal supplements: Any medications including herbal supplements can have a big effect on the anesthesia.
Type of surgery: Some surgeries are more susceptible to awareness including cardiac and obstetric operations and acute trauma surgery.

Have you or someone you know experienced anesthesia awareness?

I have been working at CNN for six years, and I am delighted that this international network has let me report on HIV/AIDS every single year. From our documentary "RU+," to the special "House Call" airing this weekend, I have tried my level best to ensure the news about this infectious disease stays on the radar screen of Americans and everyone around the world.

It has not always been easy. I was told that because of the denial surrounding HIV, people were more likely to turn the channel. Even more reason, I said, to do these important stories. And, so I have been able to travel to Bangkok and Barcelona to cover international AIDS conferences. I traveled around the United States marveling at the development of new drug cocktails but also reporting on how expensive and inaccessible they sometimes were. I was in Kenya to bring the story of a prostitute who was mysteriously immune to HIV. Scientist probed and prodded looking for the cure deep in her body. In that case, they walked away empty-handed.

Another more nuanced point is that, in some ways, we have become the victims of our own success. Therapies have improved to the point where a person infected with the virus can live a normal life span. That good news led to a resurgence of high-risk behavior a few years ago, especially among young people so confident they could rely on pills if they ever became infected. There is even a test now that can pretty reliably tell you if you are infected within 60 seconds.

Again, these have been some very positive developments, but I wonder if as a result, people don't care about HIV/AIDS as much as they used to. I used to hear about charity runs and fund raisers along with a smattering of public service announcements, but they seem to have all but vanished. The thing I found most interesting was a recent accounting of the number of AIDS cases worldwide. If you glossed over the headlines recently, you may have heard that the number of HIV/AIDS cases dropped by more than 6 million during the past year alone. If you look a little more closely, you will find most of that drop was on paper alone. It was simply due to revised numbers showing that while the worldwide cases reached 39.5 million last year, there are 33.2 million this year. Keep in mind that although that decline is due mainly to number re-jiggering, it is safe to say the AIDS pandemic is starting to lose steam. Finally.

I have had a few long talks with Bono about this very issue. He always reminds me to "also tell people the good stories about HIV," and to show people how they are making a difference. So, on World AIDS Day, we should feel better about where we are with respect to this fight. But, still, we have a lot of work to do.

Simply keeping people interested and compassionate about this issue is a good start and I am eager to hear if you have any thoughts on how to do that.

Programming note: World AIDS Day is Saturday. Watch for special coverage this weekend on "House Call" with Dr. Sanjay Gupta at 8:30 a.m. ET

Brandy Cruthird started Fit Kidz to help make up for lost PE classes

Brandy Cruthird is an infectious person to be around. Whether she's doing the "Slide," pumping iron or practicing a few boxing moves, she makes you want to get up and get going. And that's her goal. A former college basketball player, Cruthird is now a fitness expert who runs her own gym, Body by Brandy, in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. Geared for family fitness, the gym is open to all age groups. But Cruthird realized early on that a lot of kids who needed physical activity weren't getting it because their families couldn't afford a gym and PE classes in many schools were non-existent. That's why she started her Fit Kidz program

Along with Children's Hospital Boston and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, she set up a program where kids (mostly from the inner city) are sent to the gym with a doctor's prescription. They're usually children who are overweight or are on the verge of becoming obese. The youngsters visit the gym free of charge and they participate in all kinds of activities, such as dancing, rock climbing and weight training. The purpose is to get kids active and set them up for healthier lives as adults.

According to the CDC, approximately 17 percent of children in this country are obese. And more than a third of those kids are living in the inner cities. Since many urban schools don't have the money to afford PE classes, city kids are left with dilapidated sandlots and basketball courts for their exercise. And most of the times, these facilities are located in dangerous neighborhoods. Many of these children end up at home, sitting in front of a TV set or a video game. That's unfortunate, because most kids need at least 30 minutes of exercise each day to stay fit.

Cruthird wants that to change and hopes she can expand her Fit Kidz program to other gyms across Massachusetts. She's psyched about the results, saying she's seen kids "lose weight...BMIs go down...When you see a child walk in and his head is down...now (his) head is up, shoulders are back and he's feeling good about himself...we can't buy that feel-good feeling."
Sounds like a positive start for a fit and productive future.

Do you know of inner city programs in your area that are helping kids? Tell us about them.

Programming note: For more on Brandy Cruthird and her Fit Kidz campaign, watch Dr. Sanjay Gupta's Fit Nation report on American Morning Friday 6a to 9a ET