Yeah, the weekend slipped by with nary a Freakout to be had. Fortunately, these crazy stories from the worlds of science, safety, and parenting can still ruin your Thanksgiving holiday:
- By now it's [week-]old news that in addition to all those genital deformities, fetal exposure to phthalates "feminises" boys, i.e., makes their mothers say they don't want to play with cars. [bbc; abstract]
- Less well-known? The American Plastics' Council's disappointment with the way the study of fetal phthalate exposure included only moms "who were already biased against phthalates." And by "biased," I assume they meant "exposed to significant levels of in a previous study." [plasticsnews.com]
- Cognitive psychologists have found that kids have better recall of the brands they were exposed to the earliest, something the people paying to put Elmo on newborn Pampers knew a long time ago. [sciencedirect via bps research digest]
- Your buying more Yo Gabba Gabba! merchandise won't convince Nickelodeon to renew the show for seasons 3 and 4. YGG's creators say they still want to play with Nick, even though he gets all "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" with their toy[ revenue stream]s. [nyt]
- Great news from the world of umbilical cord blood banking! In tests on rats, researchers in Korea "found that the intratracheal, rather than the intraperitoneal transplantation of human UCB-derived MSCs, significantly attenuated the hyperoxia-induced lung injury, such as decreased alveolarization and fibrosis." Operators are standing by! [eurekalert]
- Go figure. The Victorian headline writers in New Zealand went with "Faithful mothers have healthier babies" instead of "Prolonged exposure to semen lowers risk of pre-eclampsia." [eurekalert]
- A new Seattle Children's Hospital study found out that home day-care providers try to re-create an authentic home-like environment for the kids by plopping them in front of the television for a couple of hours. [pediatrics - abstract via pr]
- If you've been confused about which would give your kid ADHD better, pregnant smoking or early childhood lead exposure, why not try both and be sure? [pediatrics - abstract]
One more for the list, CPSC about to launch another massive dropside crib recall, and push for a Federal ban:
http://wcbstv.com/local/cpsc.crib.recall.2.1328668.html