• Millard Fuller, the co-founder of Habitat for Humanity, died Tuesday at the age of 74. • A new "Digital Mom" report has found that young moms (under the age of 35) use the internet much more frequently than mothers over the age of 45. • Newsday reports that there has been a recent spike the number of female robbers. Justice professor Robert McCrie calls bank robbery an "equal opportunity crime" because it "doesn't require a lot of muscle." • Dr. Karen Maples, leader of the team of doctors that delivered the Bellflower octuplets, was on Larry King Live last night to discuss mother Nadya Suleman, who she called an "amazing patient." • Thousands of men in India are supplementing their incomes by working as prostitutes, according to a new report. The men meet new clients primarily through social networking websites. • Three women and one man abducted a waiter from his place of work, held him hostage for four days, and repeatedly raped him. According to the police, the women believed to be involved in the assault "belonged to rich families of Karachi’s Clifton area." • A new book to be released this week in Germany claims to reveal the shocking truth about Nazi women. Propaganda of the time painted German women as the "fairer sex," but the book shows that the female Nazis were every bit as brutal as their male counterparts. • Archeologists have found traces of chocolate on ancient jars located north of the U.S.-Mexico border. This is the earliest evidence of chocolate being consumed- or used in religious rituals- in America. • Edgar Degas' famous bronze sculpture, "Petite danseuse de quatorze ans," (or "14-year-old dancer") is expected to sell for at least $12 million when it goes to auction in London. • According to a new report, boys may have greater psychological well-being than girls due to a better physical self-concept. Self-concept is defined as the "totality of perceptions each person has of themselves." •

The classically-costumed, tulle-encircled, Degas-immortalized Odette may be on the wane. While the tutu's old-fashioned aesthetic is an obvious bane to the forward-thinking company director, the garment presents practical problems that are a real concern, especially in this strapped economic climate. The tutu started as a means of freeing a dancer's legs from the constrictions of long skirts, and contributed to dancers' reputations as scandalous deminmondaines, but today everything about them feels old-fashioned. Says the Guardian, each custom-made tutu involves

12 layers of net skirt stiffened with steel hoops, panelled overskirts layered with embroidery, sequins and lace, delicately boned and decorated bodices...Too short and tight and the dancer cannot move; too roomy and a ballerina spinning through 32 fouettés may feel as though her tutu is about to orbit around her.

Besides being costly and labor-intensive - it's increasingly difficult to find skilled tutu-makers willing to put in the work - the garment is hard for the dancers to navigate. A ballerina describes it as "It's like wearing a big plate...and sometimes it feels very dangerous — because you can't see your feet" — another remembers catching her tiara in her skirt, while male dancers complain about the difficulties of dancing around the skirt's width and the chafing of harsh tulle against skin when they lift a partner. "It's like dancing with two people," says one.

However, some feel that the iconic garment will always have a place on the stage, as well as our imaginations: says one principle dancer, "Obviously, it makes me feel glamorous and feminine, but it also affects the way I work, the articulation of the port de bras and legs. I like the feeling of being very corseted by the bodice, and being very conscious of the angle of the skirt. When you're on stage with all that sparkle, it heightens everything." Many an aspiring Angelina — who wouldn't be caught dead in anything streamlined or conceptual — would agree.

Here's a great accompanying video: The Trouble With Tutus

'It's Like Wearing A Big Plate' [Guardian]

• A new study says that women's wardrobes house a collective £2.8 billion worth of ill-fitting, too-tight clothing due to yo-yo dieting. • Women who smoke during pregnancy are at an increased risk of delivering aggressive children, and for women whose household income is less than $40,000, the risk is even greater. • The body of a deceased baby delivered in a Jersey City hospital was mistakenly thrown out with the hospital's trash. • Ten air hostesses have been fired by Air India after being deemed too fat to fly. • A skier in Colorado hung naked from a chairlift for (a very uncomfortable) fifteen minutes before being helped down by employees. • Degas's famous bronze sculpture, The Little Dancer, is up for auction this February, and is expected to fetch between £9-12 million. • New research suggests that women who suffer even one miscarriage are more likely to experience complications with their next pregnancy. • Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, has just published her second memoir. • A 7'2" Pakistani woman has been granted asylum in Britain because she claims her height made her a target at home. • A new study has found that bulimics are more impulsive than those not afflicted with the disorder. • Nastia Luikin on the underage gymnasts scandal: "no matter what age they were, they were great gymnasts... they definitely deserved to win the gold medal that night." •