If there's not two feet of snow to freakout over where you are, here are some other options:
- That definitely counts as two Freakout items. Which is freakier, I'll let you be the judge: A new dad in Kent, UK, found a razor blade inside a pair of £2 baby booties.
- The dad bought the booties [above] because they "reminded him of something King of Pop Michael Jackson might once have worn." [the sun via the awl]
- The Denver elementary school secretary who was fired and found guilty of abuse for masking taping the unruly kindergartener's mouth and hands apparently only did so after the mom--who is now suing the school district--dropped the suspended child off, then refused multiple calls throughout the day to retrieve him. [denverpost]
- Sperm researchers in England call the pH-changing molecule they've discovered, which controls motility and speed changes the sperm's "accelerator pedal" so they can get their story in the tabloids. [telegraph.co.uk via theawl]
- "Retraction: the Early Report on 'Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children' has been retracted. See the associated Comment for details. " No need, The Lancet! That powerful, clear statement should erase 12 years of vaccination-causes-autism hysteria overnight! [thelancet.com]
- Two pregnant sheep researchers [i.e., researchers of pregnant sheep] joked about how to get some of that Pfizer research money, and that's how we learned Viagra cures low birth weight! The march of science. [sciencedaily]
- "For years, scientists have warned of the possible negative health effects of bisphenol A..." Eh, don't give yourselves too much credit, scientists. It's 2010 and you're only just now connecting maternal BPA exposure to infant asthma in mice. [sciencedaily]
- In a groundbreaking new longitudinal study, researchers from the University of Montreal found that moms play a role in their 1-yo's development. [sciencedaily]
- Sensitive children are like orchids, but not, I assume, in that "buy one for ten bucks at Ikea, overwater it, then throw it out a month later" way. [sciencedaily]
- Speaking of orchids, we've kept a Home Depot orchid alive and blooming for months now by following the simple instructions on the tag: "Give it three ice cubes/week." Try it!
From The American Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine conference, aka The Pregnancy Meeting™, we learn that:
- Acupuncture cures depression during pregnancy. [sciencedaily.com]
- Sutures beat staples for C-section recovery. [sciencedaily.com]
- Eh, actually, that's about it.
Just checking that you realize that an ad for a book on autism by one of the vaccine-causes-autism crowd has been on every page of your site for about a month now.
I have no problem with Greg helping finance this blog by selling books to the scientifically illiterate.
By the way, if you have too much snow wherever you are, mail some up here to Vancouver, apparently they're having some kind of skiing contest in the next week or two and don't have enough...
I thought it was the world skeleton championships. Dang. Now I have to rework my TV viewing.