Racy Victorian divorces online at genealogy website

LONDON (Reuters) – The original Mrs Robinson’s diary and scandalous suggestions about a former heir to the British throne are all part of the latest ancestral revelations to go online.

British genealogical website Ancestry.co.uk said on Tuesday it has put the transcripts of thousands of Victorian divorce proceedings online, which reveal the racy details of an era that most modern Britons consider to have been dominated by imperial duty, a stiff upper lip and formal familial relations.

The UK Civil Divorce Records, 1858-1911 date from the year when the Matrimonial Causes Act removed the jurisdiction of divorce from the church and made it a civil matter.

Before this, a full divorce required intervention by Parliament, which had only granted around 300 since 1668. The records also include civil court records on separation, custody battles, legitimacy claims and nullification of marriages, according to the website.

Primarily due to their high cost, divorces were relatively rare in the 19th century, with around 1,200 applications made a year, compared to approximately 120,000 each year today, and not all requests were successful due to the strength of evidence required.

The rarity of such cases, combined with the fact that it was wealthy, often well-known nobility involved, made the divorce proceedings huge public scandals, played out in the press as real life soap operas.

Famously high-profile divorces included that of Henry and Isabella Robinson, the inspiration for the novel “Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace”, by Kate Summerscale.

Henry Robinson sued for divorce after reading his wife Isabella’s diary, which included in-depth details of her affair with a younger married man.

The diary was used as court evidence and when reported by the media became a huge scandal, partly because of the language used within the journal. Isabella, however, claimed the diary was a work of fiction, which led to her victory in court.

Conservative MP and baronet, Charles Mordaunt, filed for divorce in 1869 from his wife Harriet who stood accused of adultery with multiple men.

The case became national news when the Prince of Wales was rumored to be among the men who had had an affair with her. This rumor was never proven and Lady Mordaunt was eventually declared mad and spent the rest of her life in an asylum.

“At the time, such tales often developed into national news stories, but now they’re more likely to tell us something about the double standards of the Victorian divorce system or help us learn more about the lives of our sometimes naughty ancestors,” Ancestry.co.uk UK Content Manager Miriam Silverman said in a statement on Tuesday.

When the divorce laws first came into effect, men could divorce for adultery alone, while women had to supplement evidence of cheating with solid proof of mistreatment, such as battery or desertion.

Despite this double standard, roughly half of the records are accounts of proceedings initiated by the wife. Many of the nullifications of marriages fall into this category, with failure to consummate the nuptials a common reason.

One such example in the records shows a Frances Smith filing for divorce in 1893 under such grounds.

In the court ledgers it is noted that the marriage was never consummated, with the husband incapable “by reason of the frigidity and impotency or other defect of the parts of generation” and “such incapacity is incurable by art or skill” following inspection.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; editing by Patricia Reaney)

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The Lede Blog: Clinton Testifies on Benghazi Attacks

The Lede followed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s testimony Wednesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the American Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

At a House Committee hearing last October investigating the attack, as reported on The Lede, State Department officials and security experts who served on the ground offered conflicting assessments about what resources were requested and made available to deal with growing security concerns in Tripoli and Benghazi.

Mrs. Clinton had been scheduled to testify before Congress last month, but an illness, a concussion and a blood clot near her brain forced her to postpone her appearance.

As our colleagues Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt reported, four State Department officials were removed from their posts on last month after an independent panel criticized the “grossly inadequate” security at a diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

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Seau's family sues NFL over brain injuries

Add Junior Seau's family to the thousands of people who are suing the NFL over the long-term damage caused by concussions.

Seau's ex-wife and four children sued the league Wednesday, saying the former linebacker's suicide was the result of brain disease caused by violent hits he sustained while playing football.

The wrongful death lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court in San Diego, blames the NFL for its "acts or omissions" that hid the dangers of repetitive blows to the head. It says Seau developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) from those hits, and accuses the NFL of deliberately ignoring and concealing evidence of the risks associated with traumatic brain injuries.

Seau died at age 43 of a self-inflicted gunshot in May. He was diagnosed with CTE, based on posthumous tests, earlier this month.

An Associated Press review in November found that more than 3,800 players have sued the NFL over head injuries in at least 175 cases as the concussion issue has gained attention in recent years. The total number of plaintiffs is 6,000 when spouses, relatives and other representatives are included.

Scores of the concussion lawsuits have been brought together before U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody in Philadelphia.

"Our attorneys will review it and respond to the claims appropriately through the court," the NFL said in a statement Wednesday.

Helmet manufacturer Riddell Inc., also is a defendant, with the Seau family saying Riddell was "negligent in their design, testing, assembly, manufacture, marketing, and engineering of the helmets" used by NFL players. The suit says the helmets were unreasonably dangerous and unsafe.

Riddell issued a statement saying it is, "confident in the integrity of our products and our ability to successfully defend our products against challenges."

Seau was one of the best linebackers during his 20 seasons in the NFL, retiring in 2009.

"We were saddened to learn that Junior, a loving father and teammate, suffered from CTE," the family said in a statement released to the AP. "While Junior always expected to have aches and pains from his playing days, none of us ever fathomed that he would suffer a debilitating brain disease that would cause him to leave us too soon.

"We know this lawsuit will not bring back Junior. But it will send a message that the NFL needs to care for its former players, acknowledge its decades of deception on the issue of head injuries and player safety, and make the game safer for future generations."

Plaintiffs are listed as Gina Seau, Junior's ex-wife; Junior's children Tyler, Sydney, Jake and Hunter, and Bette Hoffman, trustee of Seau's estate.

The lawsuit accuses the league of glorifying the violence in pro football, and creating the impression that delivering big hits "is a badge of courage which does not seriously threaten one's health."

It singles out NFL Films and some of its videos for promoting the brutality of the game.

"In 1993's 'NFL Rocks,' Junior Seau offered his opinion on the measure of a punishing hit: 'If I can feel some dizziness, I know that guy is feeling double (that)," the suit says.

The NFL consistently has denied allegations similar to those in the lawsuit.

"The NFL, both directly and in partnership with the NIH, Centers for Disease Control and other leading organizations, is committed to supporting a wide range of independent medical and scientific research that will both address CTE and promote the long-term health and safety of athletes at all levels," the league told the AP after it was revealed Seau had CTE.

The lawsuit claims money was behind the NFL's actions.

"The NFL knew or suspected that any rule changes that sought to recognize that link (to brain disease) and the health risk to NFL players would impose an economic cost that would significantly and adversely change the profit margins enjoyed by the NFL and its teams," the Seaus said in the suit.

The National Institutes of Health, based in Bethesda, Md., studied three unidentified brains, one of which was Seau's, and said the findings on Seau were similar to autopsies of people "with exposure to repetitive head injuries."

"It was important to us to get to the bottom of this, the truth," Gina Seau told the AP then. "And now that it has been conclusively determined from every expert that he had obviously had CTE, we just hope it is taken more seriously. You can't deny it exists, and it is hard to deny there is a link between head trauma and CTE. There's such strong evidence correlating head trauma and collisions and CTE."

In the final years of his life, Seau went through wild behavior swings, according to Gina and to 23-year-old son, Tyler. There also were signs of irrationality, forgetfulness, insomnia and depression.

"He emotionally detached himself and would kind of 'go away' for a little bit," Tyler Seau said. "And then the depression and things like that. It started to progressively get worse."

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Research on Deadly Bird Flu to Resume After Safety Debate

Experiments with a deadly flu virus, suspended last year after a fierce global debate over safety, will start up again in some laboratories, probably within the next few weeks, scientists say.

The research touched off a firestorm in 2011 when it became known that two groups, one in the Netherlands and another in the United States, had genetically altered a dangerous bird flu virus to make it more contagious in mammals. Some scientists warned that a deadly pandemic could break out if the mutant virus leaked out of the lab accidentally or if terrorists stole it or made it themselves, using articles in scientific journals for the recipe.

The outcry led scientists conducting the experiments to declare a voluntary moratorium a year ago, in part to let research organizations and governments decide what safety rules to require.

Now, flu researchers say, the moratorium should end because most countries have rules in place. A letter from 40 scientists — the same ones who called the moratorium last year — was published on Wednesday in the journals Science and Nature, saying it is time for the work to begin again in countries ready to allow it.

But the United States, which pays for much of the flu research both at home and abroad, has not yet released new guidelines. So scientists in America will not be able to resume experiments yet, nor will those in other countries who depend on grant money from the United States.

During a telephone news conference on Wednesday, Ron Fouchier, a virologist who conducted some of the flu experiments at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, said the scientists were lifting the moratorium without waiting for guidelines from the United States.

“How long do you want us to wait?” Dr. Fouchier asked. “If this was the Netherlands, would the U.S. wait? Should all countries really wait for the U.S., and why?”

He said his laboratory would resume research within a few weeks. Although he receives research money from the National Institutes of Health in the United States, funding from other sources will allow him to go ahead, he said. Other researchers in the European Union would be free to pick up the research if they had funding that did not come from the United States government, he said. Laboratories in China and Canada may be ready to start up, but Japan, like the United States, is still working on new guidelines, researchers said during the teleconference.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the Department of Health and Human Services was reviewing new guidelines, and that he expected them to be approved in weeks. The guidelines will specify the laboratory conditions under which this type of research is permitted and require that experiments have a potential benefit for public health.

The experiments involve a type of bird flu virus called H5N1. It does not often infect people, but appears unusually deadly when it does. Of 610 known cases in people since 1997, slightly more than half have been fatal. But the real death rate is not known and could be lower than half because some mild cases may go uncounted.

So far, H5N1 has rarely spread from person to person. People who fall ill have nearly always caught it from poultry. But flu viruses mutate a lot, and the fear has been that H5N1 will somehow become more contagious in humans.

The debated experiments, by Dr. Fouchier and Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, involved ferrets, which are considered a good model for flu research because they react to the virus in much the way people do. Researchers can infect ferrets with H5N1 by squirting the virus into their noses or lungs, but then the animals normally do not infect one another. However, by genetically manipulating the virus, researchers created a form that became airborne and spread from ferret to ferret. Its transmissibility set off alarms.

Advocates of the research insist it can be done safely. And they say it is necessary so scientists can recognize changes in naturally occurring viruses that are dangerous and signal the need to eradicate infected animal populations. Understanding the viruses better should also help researchers develop more effective vaccines and antiviral drugs, Dr. Fouchier said.

He said other scientists could be given samples of the mutant virus for research only with the permission of Erasmus Medical Center, the National Institutes of Health and virus experts at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan.

But some scientists still have reservations. Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Minnesota Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance at the University of Minnesota and a member of a United States biosecurity board, said that he thought the research should go on, but that details should not be published for fear others would try to replicate it without safety precautions.

“The work they’re doing is really important,” he said, “but I don’t see it as work I want in the hands of every potential gene jockey out there.”

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US Airways Profit Doubles as Planes Are Fuller

US Airways' net income doubled in the fourth quarter and executives said the strong demand the airline is seeing is often a precursor to higher fares.

Fuller planes made the difference in the last three months as revenue set a record.

Airlines successfully raised fares five times last year but have struggled to do so lately. Two attempts led by United this month failed after other airlines didn't match the increases. For US Airways, one measure of fares, called yield, declined very slightly in the fourth quarter.

The good fortune for travelers may not last.

US Airways President Scott Kirby said that full planes and improved demand historically lead to fare increases. There were fewer empty seats in the final quarter of 2012 — occupancy rose 2 percentage points to 83.9 percent. January bookings are up 8 percent from a year ago, Kirby said.

"While it's taking some time, I expect that this strong environment will lead to improving yields across the industry," Kirby said on a conference call with analysts.

Even without higher fares, having more passengers boosted profits. Revenue for each seat flown one mile — a key performance indicator for airlines — rose 2.2 percent. US Airways' net income for the quarter was $37 million, or 22 cents per share, compared with $18 million, or 11 cents per share a year ago. Excluding special items, net income was 26 cents per share, 7 cents higher than analyst forecasts, according to FactSet.

Revenue rose 3.9 percent to $3.28 billon, a record for the quarter.

US Airways is in merger talks with American Airlines. But it wouldn't discuss the topic on Wednesday, citing a non-disclosure agreement. American and its parent, AMR Corp., have been operating under bankruptcy protection since November 2011. Last week AMR reported a loss for the fourth quarter, excluding special items, of $88 million, an improvement of $121 million from a year earlier.

US Airways carried 5 million passengers last year, fewer than half the number carried by the biggest airline, United. Its hubs in Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Charlotte, N.C., are smaller than the big cities dominated by its larger competitors. But those hubs are profitable, its fuel costs have been slightly below those of its competitors and its labor costs are lower.

A merger between US Airways, the fifth-largest U.S. airline by passenger traffic, and No. 3 American would make the pair equal in size to United. Some analysts believe US Airways needs the merger to survive. But J.P. Morgan analyst Jamie Baker wrote in a note to investors Wednesday that he disagrees.

"With 2012 margins just shy of Delta while topping those of Southwest and United, we find investor stand-alone pessimism to be significantly misplaced," he wrote.

Shares of Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways Group Inc. rose 22 cents, or 1.5 percent, to close at $15.07 after rising as high as $15.64. CEO Doug Parker said US Airways shares rose 166 percent last year, more than any other Fortune 500 company.

For the full year, net income jumped to $637 million, or $3.28 per share — the largest profit in the airline's history, the company said. In 2011 it earned $71 million, or 44 cents per share. Revenue for 2012 rose almost 6 percent to $13.83 billion.

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BlackBerry Z10 Looks Like iPhone 5, Takes on Siri

RIM is set to announce the first devices running its new BlackBerry 10 operating system at an event on January 30. A lucky few, however, have already gotten their hands on what looks to be the new hardware, including German site TelekomPresse.

[More from Mashable: Watch These iPhone Knockoffs Get Bulldozed]

The site has the BlackBerry Z10, a touchscreen device with a similar look to some of the other popular smartphones out there — especially the iPhone 5.

Curious to see how the two compared, they put them side-by-side in the video above, running through both the physical design of both devices as well as some of their features.

[More from Mashable: RIM May License BlackBerry 10 to Other Manufacturers]

Notably, the video shows a Siri-like voice control functionality in BlackBerry 10, that we haven’t seen previously. As you can see in the test above, it beats Siri for speed.

SEE ALSO: RIM Adds 15,000 BlackBerry 10 Apps in a Weekend

While similar at first glance, design-wise the two phones do have some differences. The Z10 has a 4.2-inch screen, slightly larger than the iPhone 5’s 4-inch display. Both phones have a power button on top, however, the button on the BlackBerry is in the center of the top of the phone, while the iPhone’s is on the right on the device.

The volume controls are on the right side of the Z10, and left side of the iPhone 5. When it comes to power, the connection for the iPhone 5 is on the bottom of the device with the headphone jack, while the HDMI and USB connections on the Z10 are located on the left.

Check out the video above for a look at the full comparison of the two devices. Are you looking forward to BlackBerry 10? Can the new OS save RIM? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

BlackBerry 10 Lock Screen

You unlock a BlackBerry 10 device by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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U.N. Agency Warns of Rising Unemployment

PARIS — More than 197 million people worldwide are jobless, and an additional 39 million have simply given up looking for work, a United Nations agency said on Monday, warning that government budget-balancing was hurting employment and would probably lead to more job losses soon.

Luca Bruno/Associated Press

Perusing job postings in Milan. More than 197 million people worldwide are unemployed.

With global growth stalling five years after the financial crisis upended much of the world economy, the number of jobless is expected to rise by 5.1 million this year, to more than 202 million, the International Labor Organization said in a special report. And it predicted there would be a further three million newly jobless people next year.

High unemployment rates in the developed world — 7.8 percent in the United States, 11.8 percent in the euro zone — weigh on demand and hold back economic growth. Global gross domestic product will probably expand about 3.6 percent this year, the International Monetary Fund said in October, below its previous forecast.

Addressing the issue of unemployment last Thursday, the I.M.F.’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, urged governments to focus on “growth that can actually deliver jobs.”

“We stopped the collapse,” Ms. Lagarde said during a news conference in Washington, warning about the risks to growth posed by complacency in Europe and difficult budget negotiations in the United States. “We should avoid the relapse, and it’s not time to relax.”

The International Labor Organization found that macroeconomic imbalances “have been passed on to the labor market to a significant degree.” With aggregate demand weakening, employment “has been further hit by fiscal austerity programs in a number of countries, which often involved direct cutbacks in employment and wages, directly impacting labor markets.”

More troubling, it said, was that while governments had sought to counter the effects of the financial crisis with fiscal stimulus, later austerity measures in some countries appeared to be reinforcing the downturn.

The effects of the recession in Europe are being felt elsewhere through “a spillover effect,” the organization found, mostly through the mechanism of reduced demand for foreign goods, but also in the form of volatile capital inflows in places like Latin America and the Caribbean. These forces have left policy makers with difficult choices about how to keep soaring currencies in check without strangling economic growth.

The agency said that it was common for the rate of job creation to be slow after a financial crisis, but that there had been “a short-lived respite” for developed countries beginning in 2010. That period has now ended, and once again “further job restructuring is likely before a stronger rebound can be expected in labor markets.”

More people were simply leaving the job market altogether, particularly in the developed world, with labor force participation rates falling “dramatically,” it said, “masking the true extent of the jobs crisis.”

The ratio of employment-to-population ratio has fallen as much as four percentage points or more in some areas, it noted, and even where jobless rates have eased, the participation rate “has not yet recovered.”

The labor organization also spotlighted youth unemployment, noting that there were 73.8 million young people unemployed worldwide. It estimated that an additional half million would join the ranks of the jobless this year. The youth unemployment rate, now 12.6 percent, will probably rise to 12.9 percent by 2017, the agency said.

“The crisis has dramatically diminished the labor market prospects for young people,” the agency said, “as many experience long-term unemployment right from the start of their labor market entry, a situation that was never observed during earlier cyclical downturns.”

The agency said employment tapered off in 2011 before turning negative in 2012, with four million people added to global unemployment rolls last year.

But even countries in which jobless rates have not risen “often have experienced a worsening in job quality,” the organization said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 22, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the International Monetary Fund’s forecast for global growth in 2013, made in October. It forecast an expansion of 3.6 percent, not 3.3 percent, which was its revised 2012 forecast.

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Djokovic getting the hang of winning in Australia

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Novak Djokovic is really starting to get the hang of how to handle himself at the Australian Open.

An expression often used Down Under — "Keep your shirt on" — is designed to discourage anyone from becoming unnecessarily overexcited.

Djokovic took it literally after his 6-1, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 win Tuesday night over fifth-seeded Tomas Berdych, advancing to the semifinals at an 11th consecutive Grand Slam tournament.

The 2-hour, 31-minute victory took exactly half the time of his five-set, fourth-round win two nights previously against Stanislas Wawrinka. In the early hours of Monday morning, Djokovic ripped his sweat-drenched shirt off and flexed his muscles, mimicking his victory celebration after the 5:53 victory over Rafael Nadal in the 2012 Australian Open final.

That was acceptable at the time to the Rod Laver Arena crowd, which was still abuzz at 1:40 a.m. following five sets of high-level tennis.

After the Berdych match, however, he realized there was no need to raise the roof. Djokovic calmly pumped his fist once and walked to the net; he later joked about the ice baths he'd taken in between matches on the advice of local hero Lleyton Hewitt.

"It was a great performance. I was hoping to have a shorter match ... just not to go over 5 hours," Djokovic said, in a comparatively subdued mood after a considerably more routine victory. "It's always going to be tough against Tomas; he's an established player. He has a big game, big serve. He can compete against anyone on any surface."

In the semifinals, Djokovic will meet No. 4-seeded David Ferrer.

Ferrer survived a quarterfinal battle with fellow Spaniard Nicolas Almagro. Almagro had three chances to serve for the match, but Ferrer broke each time.

A usually mild-mannered pro, Ferrer showed his aggression at times when he threatened to spike his racket and even smashed his water bottle in the changeover after he'd dropped serve in a frustrating fourth set that featured eight breaks of serve.

He'd never lost to Almagro in 12 previous meetings and, as the No. 1 Spaniard in the draw in the absence of 11-time major winner Rafael Nadal, felt a responsibility to reach the semis.

"It was (a) miracle I won this match," Ferrer said of his comeback 4-6, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (4), 6-2 win. "I tried to fight every point; that's my game. I always fight."

Ferrer survived once in the third set and twice in the fourth when Almagro was serving for the match, but held his nerve and finally advanced to his third semifinal in the last four Grand Slam events.

"In the important moments, I played more consistent in my game," Ferrer said. "Of course, in the next round, the semifinals, I need to play my best tennis, better than today."

Djokovic acknowledged Ferrer's work ethic, saying the 30-year-old Spaniard was "one of the most respected guys on the tour because he never gives up."

"He plays every single match of his career with 100 percent," Djokovic said.

"I'm expecting a long one," he added.

Ferrer has never been past a major semifinal.

There are only three men left in the draw who have won Grand Slam titles — Djokovic has won five, including the last two in Australia. He's aiming to be the first man in the Open era to win three consecutive Australian titles.

The other two are in action Wednesday, with 17-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer against 2008 Australian finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France. Andy Murray, who broke the 76-year drought for British men at the major tournaments by winning the U.S. Open last year, will play Jeremy Chardy of France.

On the women's side, defending champion Victoria Azarenka faces Svetlana Kuznetsova, who has won the U.S. Open and the French Open, and 15-time major winner Serena Williams is against 19-year-old American Sloane Stephens, who is playing her first quarterfinal at a Grand Slam.

Maria Sharapova completed a career Grand Slam last year by winning the French Open, a few months after losing the Australian Open final to Azarenka. After her 6-2, 6-2 quarterfinal win over Ekatrina Makarova on Tuesday, she has conceded only nine games in five matches — a record in Australia.

"To be honest, those are not the stats you want to be known for," Sharapova said.

After opening with a pair of 6-0, 6-0 wins, Sharapova thrashed seven-time major winner Venus Williams 6-1, 6-3 in the third round and Belgian Kristen Flipkens 6-0, 6-1 in the fourth.

Li Na has reached the semifinals in three of the last four years at Melbourne Park after beating Agnieszka Radwanska 7-5, 6-3. The 30-year-old Chinese player lost the 2011 final in Australia to Kim Clijsters, then won her breakthrough Grand Slam at the French Open a few months later. She hasn't been back to a major final since.

Djokovic won his first major title in Australia in 2008, then didn't make another final in his next 11 Grand Slam events. He's won four since then and is the top-ranked man in tennis, crediting the lessons from his experiences back then.

"At the start of my career, I went through a lot of different kinds of challenges physically, mentally," he said. "Everybody makes mistakes. I was aware of the fact that I need to improve because I wasn't feeling well, especially in the heat. I had lots of health issues.

"I don't want to go through it again. I am aware of the importance of an everyday practice and recovery basis. So as long as it's like that, I think I'll be all right."

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The Well Column: Facing Cancer, a Stark Choice

In the 1970s, women’s health advocates were highly suspicious of mastectomies. They argued that surgeons — in those days, pretty much an all-male club — were far too quick to remove a breast after a diagnosis of cancer, with disfiguring results.

But today, the pendulum has swung the other way. A new generation of women want doctors to take a more aggressive approach, and more and more are asking that even healthy breasts be removed to ward off cancer before it can strike.

Researchers estimate that as many as 15 percent of women with breast cancer — 30,000 a year — opt to have both breasts removed, up from less than 3 percent in the late 1990s. Notably, it appears that the vast majority of these women have never received genetic testing or counseling and are basing the decision on exaggerated fears about their risk of recurrence.

In addition, doctors say an increasing number of women who have never had a cancer diagnosis are demanding mastectomies based on genetic risk. (Cancer databases don’t track these women, so their numbers are unknown.)

“We are confronting almost an epidemic of prophylactic mastectomy,” said Dr. Isabelle Bedrosian, a surgical oncologist at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “I think the medical community has taken notice. We don’t have data that say oncologically this is a necessity, so why are women making this choice?”

One reason may be the never-ending awareness campaigns that have left many women in perpetual fear of the disease. Improvements in breast reconstruction may also be driving the trend, along with celebrities who go public with their decision to undergo preventive mastectomy.

This month Allyn Rose, a 24-year-old Miss America contestant from Washington, D.C., made headlines when she announced plans to have both her healthy breasts removed after the pageant; both her mother and her grandmother died from breast cancer. The television personality Giuliana Rancic, 37, and the actress Christina Applegate, 41, also talked publicly about having double mastectomies after diagnoses of early-stage breast cancer.

“You’re not going to find other organs that people cut out of their bodies because they’re worried about disease,” said the medical historian Dr. Barron H. Lerner, author of “The Breast Cancer Wars” (2001). “Because breast cancer is a disease that is so emotionally charged and gets so much attention, I think at times women feel almost obligated to be as proactive as possible — that’s the culture of breast cancer.”

Most of the data on prophylactic mastectomy come from the University of Minnesota, where researchers tracked contralateral mastectomy trends (removing a healthy breast alongside one with cancer) from 1998 to 2006. Dr. Todd M. Tuttle, chief of surgical oncology, said double mastectomy rates more than doubled during that period and the rise showed no signs of slowing.

From those trends as well as anecdotal reports, Dr. Tuttle estimates that at least 15 percent of women who receive a breast cancer diagnosis will have the second, healthy breast removed. “It’s younger women who are doing it,” he said.

The risk that a woman with breast cancer will develop cancer in the other breast is about 5 percent over 10 years, Dr. Tuttle said. Yet a University of Minnesota study found that women estimated their risk to be more than 30 percent.

“I think there are women who markedly overestimate their risk of getting cancer,” he said.

Most experts agree that double mastectomy is a reasonable option for women who have a strong genetic risk and have tested positive for a breast cancer gene. That was the case with Allison Gilbert, 42, a writer in Westchester County who discovered her genetic risk after her grandmother died of breast cancer and her mother died of ovarian cancer.

Even so, she delayed the decision to get prophylactic mastectomy until her aunt died from an aggressive breast cancer. In August, she had a double mastectomy. (She had her ovaries removed earlier.)

“I feel the women in my family didn’t have a way to avoid their fate,” said Ms. Gilbert, author of the 2011 book “Parentless Parents,” about how losing a parent influences one’s own style of parenting. “Here I was given an incredible opportunity to know what I have and to do something about it and, God willing, be around for my kids longer.”

Even so, she said her decisions were not made lightly. The double mastectomy and reconstruction required an initial 11 1/2-hour surgery and an “intense” recovery. She got genetic counseling, joined support groups and researched her options.

But doctors say many women are not making such informed decisions. Last month, University of Michigan researchers reported on a study of more than 1,446 women who had breast cancer. Four years after their diagnosis, 35 percent were considering removing their healthy breast and 7 percent had already done so.

Notably, most of the women who had a double mastectomy were not at high risk for a cancer recurrence. In fact, studies suggest that most women who have double mastectomies never seek genetic testing or counseling.

“Breast cancer becomes very emotional for people, and they view a breast differently than an arm or a required body part that you use every day,” said Sarah T. Hawley, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan. “Women feel like it’s a body part over which they totally have a choice, and they say, ‘I want to put this behind me — I don’t want to worry about it anymore.’ ”

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Google Profit Exceeds Expectations

Although Google is scrambling to meet consumers as they flock to mobile devices, the question is whether it is moving fast enough.

When Google announced its fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday, investors were watching closely for positive signals of Google’s progress in the evolution to a mobile world.

They received a disappointing sign: The price that advertisers paid Google each time someone clicked on an ad, known as cost per click, decreased 6 percent from the year-ago quarter, falling for the fifth consecutive quarter, year over year. It has been declining in large part because mobile ads cost advertisers less, and more people are using Google on their mobile devices and fewer on their desktop computer.

Still, there was some evidence that Google was making progress in solving the mobile challenge. The price for clicks on ads rose 2 percent from last quarter.

Analysts had mixed reactions to Google’s financial report. The company exceeded their expectations on profit, but disappointed on revenue. That was at least in part because analysts are still figuring out how to account for Motorola Mobility, the struggling cellphone maker that Google acquired last year.

Larry Page, Google’s chief executive and co-founder, was optimistic in a statement.

“In today’s multi-screen world we face tremendous opportunities as a technology company focused on user benefit,” he said. “It’s an incredibly exciting time to be at Google.”

The company reported fourth-quarter revenue of $14.42 billion, an increase of 36 percent over the year-ago quarter. Net revenue, which excludes payments to the company’s advertising partners, was $11.34 billion, up from $8.13 billion.

Net income rose 13 percent to $$10.65 a share.

The fourth quarter is generally Google’s brightest because it makes much of its money on retail ads that run during the holiday shopping season. Analysts had expected revenue of $10.47 a share, on revenue of $12.3 billion. Google warned last week that analysts’ expectations were off target because Google sold Motorola’s set-top box division during the quarter so it did not include it in the quarterly results. Still, even including that division of Motorola, Google’s revenue would have missed expectations.

Shares of Google, which fell slightly during the day, were up 4 percent in after-hours trading. “This is supposed to be Google’s quarter to shine, the December quarter, and we’re going to have it all mucked up by Motorola,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners.

This holiday season was the first that Google charged e-commerce companies to be included in its comparison shopping engine, and these so-called product listing ads contributed to its bottom line.

“Q4 retail is absolutely crucial for Google’s earnings,” said Sid Shah, director of business analytics at Adobe, which handles $2 billion in annual advertising spending. “Despite talk about retail having a weak season, Google’s product listing ad program has taken off quite successfully.”

Nonetheless, Google’s mobile challenge overhung even its usual holiday shopping sparkle. Consumers are increasingly shopping on phones and tablets, yet Google and other companies have not yet figured out how best to profit from mobile users.

“You would expect Google to be a key player benefiting from mobile, but that hasn’t played out in the last year,” said Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus.

One problem is that advertisers pay about half as much for an ad on a mobile device, in part because they are not yet sure how effective mobile ads can be.

Another challenge for Google is that consumers increasingly use apps, like Yelp or Kayak, to search on mobile devices instead of using Google. Even when consumers use Google for mobile searches, they are often doing so on Apple devices like iPhones, for which Google has to pay Apple a fee.

This shift is happening as Google’s biggest, most lucrative business — desktop search — is slowing. The share of clicks on Google results that happen on desktop computers has fallen to 73 percent from 77 percent in the last six months, while the share of clicks on tablets and smartphones has increased to 27 percent from 23 percent, according to data from Adobe.

Meanwhile, Google has a new competitor in search: Facebook, which last week introduced a new form of personalized social search on the site.

Google has also recently become a maker of mobile devices, both by acquiring Motorola and by producing the line of Nexus devices with manufacturer partners. In the fourth quarter, Google sold about 1.5 million Nexus phones and tablets, not including those sold by other retailers, according to estimates from JPMorgan.

In the fourth quarter, a weight was lifted from Google when the Federal Trade Commission closed its antitrust investigation of Google’s search practices. But it remains under investigation in Europe, where the outcome is expected to be harsher.

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