Pioneer Surgical Technology, Inc of Raleigh, NC and Marquette, MI today announces the first clinical use of nanOss Bioactive 3D, a three-dimensionally shaped addition to its flagship biologic bone graft product line, nanOss Bioactive.  The new nanOss Bioactive 3D bone graft utilizes proprietary nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite as well as a collagen-based biopolymer to promote bone growth in the posterolateral spine.

Regarding Pioneer's latest product introduction, Mr. Shane Ray, General Manager - Biologics for Pioneer stated, "We are extremely excited to start the clinical phase of nanOss Bioactive 3D. Three-dimensional shapes are popular in spine surgery and with this addition, we now have one of the most extensive biologic portfolios on the market."

Pioneer Surgical Biologics now offers a full line of synthetic bone grafts as well as human tissue products including machined lateral, traditional lumbar and cervical allograft, human demineralized bone matrix (DBM) bone grafts, as well as bone graft delivery accessories. For more information regarding Pioneer's Biologics Product offerings, including nanOss Bioactive 3D, please visit the Pioneer Surgical website at www.pioneersurgical.com.

About Pioneer Surgical Technology, Inc.
Pioneer Surgical Technology, Inc. is a dynamic medical device firm founded in 1992. Pioneer's focus on innovation has resulted in over 120 U.S. and foreign patents, with numerous patents pending. The company has a comprehensive portfolio of orthopedic, spine and biologic systems. Pioneer entered the orthobiologics market with two acquisitions in 2007. Our Orthopedic, Spine, and Biologics divisions produce state of the art, cost-effective solutions for surgical procedures that have proven difficult or problematic for both surgeons and patients. For more information on Pioneer and its products, visit www.pioneersurgical.com.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary, today made the following comment on President Obama's appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

"The President is upending years of Senate practice and legal precedent with this move. He's interpreting advice and consent as bypass and appoint.  It's an affront to constitutional checks and balances.  It's also an affront to the principle that every agency should have accountability, which the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lacks.  The President is ignoring the longstanding advice of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which has found that an adjournment of '5 or even 10 days' would not be sufficient for a recess appointment.  I'm planning to write to the Attorney General to ask if the President asked for a new Justice Department opinion prior to making this appointment and whether the Attorney General agrees with it.  Regardless, the President needs to make clear why there was a change in position and what rationale the White House counsel used to overturn more than 90 years of Justice Department precedent.  The White House should make the rationale public.  The public's business ought to be public.  And the President promised to run the most transparent administration in history."

With 7 million Americans receiving unemployment benefits, and many counting the years - instead of months - since their layoff, author Darlene Quinn says now is a good time to reinvent yourself.

She cites James Sherk, a senior policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, who says the jobs people held two or three years ago often simply aren't there anymore.

"People are trying to find jobs similar to what they had previously, when those jobs completely don't exist," he told Reuters recently. "So they will spend a good portion of their period unemployed looking for jobs that they are unlikely to find."

Quinn is a master of personal reinvention. She started her career as a teacher, then became a contractor, developing self-improvement and modeling programs for hospitals and a store. That segued into a position as a top executive at Bullocks Wilshire department store and "retirement" as a freelance journalist.

And now, the 74-year-old is an award-winning novelist. She published her third book, Webs of Fate (www.darlenequinn.net), this fall, continuing her series about deceit and intrigue in the high-end retail industry.

She says she was always a story-teller; she just never thought about putting her stories on paper.

"Being a victim of the short-lived educational phenomenon called sight-reading, which did not include phonics, I had always been intimidated by the written word," she said.

"Somehow none of my teachers appreciated my creativity when it came to spelling.  Therefore, my creative writing efforts were sprinkled with so many red marks, they appeared to have broken out with the measles."

Maybe, she added, she just needed a great story to tell and a passion to tell it that was stronger than her fear.

Quinn became a schoolteacher after earning a bachelor's at San Jose State University. Much later in life, while working as a department store executive during a time of tremendous upheaval in the retail fashion industry, she found her story. But before she tried to tell it, she first sharpened her wit and her pen by writing articles for trade journals, magazines and newspapers.

That led to her being drafted by actor Buddy Ebsen to help him with his first novel, a love story called Kelly's Quest. Ebsen was working on a second, a mystery based on his popular TV persona detective Barnaby Jones, when he died in 2003. His widow asked Quinn to finish the book, Sizzling Cold Case, which was published in 2006.

By now, Quinn was ready for her own tale.

"I felt compelled to tell the story of our vanishing department stores," she said. "Instead of writing a dour tell-all about the business, I decided to chronicle my experiences in one of my fictional worlds and I filled that landscape with the realistic and dynamic characters that inhabited my daily life.

"The age of computers with spell-checking software helped me get over my fear of a red-inked manuscript."

By 2008, Quinn had finished her story of intrigue in the retail fashion business. Webs of Power won a 2009 National Indie Excellence Award the following year.  Twisted Webs followed in 2010.

"One thing I've learned in my life is that things change," Quinn said. "People change and, sometimes, their dreams have to change with them.

"To be releasing my third novel at age 74 is the fulfillment of a dream I never knew I had. Until now."

About Darlene Quinn

Darlene Quinn is an author and journalist from Long Beach, Calif., whose novels about deceit, intrigue and glamour in the retail fashion industry were inspired by her years with Bullocks Wilshire Specialty department stores. Her newest, Webs of Fate, won the 2011 Reader's Favorites Award before it hit the bookshelves.
It provides the back story for the characters in the first two novels in the series: Webs of Power, winner of a 2009 National Indie Excellence Award, and Twisted Webs, winner of 2011 International Book Award for General Fiction and the 011 National Indie Excellence Awards for General Fiction.