Some news from the worlds of science, education, health, politics and parenting, designed to freak you out and ruin your long weekend. I confess, I watched Wall-E with K2 this week, so I've already got a head start on the first one:
- Half of Americans are basically drinking 200-500 empty calories a day of sugared drinks. The dataset is people ages 2 and up, but for simplicity, let's just assume it's every kid under 5yo and their dads. [cdc.gov via the incidental economist]
- Wow, according to the comment this angry childcare expert/closet eugenicist left, feeding too much sugar to his kids is about the only thing Dadwagoneer Theodore hasn't screwed up. Feel the love. [dadwagon]
- Radio-Flyer or no, maybe $20 is just a bit too cheap to produce a riding toy that doesn't pitch your kid forward onto his face, hmm? The CPSC doesn't specify in the recall notice, but hopefully, those were just baby teeth that got knocked out. [cpsc]
- Looks like Phil & Teds has finally caved and agreed to recall their metoo clip-on high chairs and to remove the chair's pesky finger amputation feature. [cpsc]
- Those lingering flame retardant chemicals are retarding birth weights now, a statistical study finds. [eurekalert press release]
- A study of baby brain waves in bilingual households finds that kids are able to distinguish between "¿Que es esto EEG sombrero?" and "WTF is up with the EEG helmet?" as early as 8-10 months. [eurekalert press release, with photo]
- "Baby Fever" is real, and a husband-and-wife couple in Kansas who've spent ten years researching it thought this was a good time of year to put out a press release on the topic. [eurekalert]
- "Hands-on dads give kids an edge," says the announcement of a Canadian study which actually only surveyed kids and moms. Also, "hands-on" is apparently Quebecois for "lives in same house." [eurekalert]
