I love a quick, informative slideshow and this one doesn’t disappoint. Scientific American investigates the science behind some of the common pregnancy myths and wives’ tales. For example, is heartburn a sign that your baby will have hair? Do overweight mothers give birth to overweight babies? Do pregnant women eat more when having a boy?

(Answers: Most likely, yes, and yes. But there’s more so follow the link!)

Trevor Butterworth from STATS.org sent us a link to this article he wrote a while back, and I’m just getting around to posting it now. He dissects “an alarming new report by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics” that claims baby bath products are full of carcinogens. The media latched on to the study, and USA Today headlined a piece: “Group finds carcinogens in kids bath products.” Trevor Butterworth goes into detail about why this study isn’t very good. The basics: the study was published by an activist group, wasn’t peer reviewed, and well, it wasn’t um, whatchacall, scientific.

This is a great piece to read if you’re interested in how the media reports science, or how the media reports bad studies that aren’t science:

We need real science. And we need the media to be able to distinguish what counts as real science and what is merely self-serving activism.

Yay, science. Boo, self-serving activism. Oh, and also, boo, babies getting cancer from bath products.

I thought we could all use a good laugh today. Via Gawker, here is a baby product made by a company who might want to rethink their marketing photos.

The Peekaru

I have no idea if this is a valuable product. It very well may be. But the image is a little disturbing, no?

It was like any other Sunday in the South. Traffic picked up at 8, cleared out by 9, and by 10 there was more traffic. People were either leaving their homes to go to church, church to go home, to the local restaurant, or out to Wal-Mart.

Yes, Wal-Mart—every recession-affected person has been there at least once this week, I guarantee you, and we, as a family, are no exception. We were there for, I think, ice cream and diapers, and ended up with a cartful of items that gave us a receipt of $180.00 and looks of bewilderment. Where the hell did all that money go?

In this bewildered state, we didn’t notice the woman barreling toward us, a look of ecstasy on her face, a lightness in her step. She stopped right in front of us, making us stop, and we were in shock at what happened next.

» Continue reading “All I Wanted Was Ice Cream”

cartoon by Gary Larson

If you read other skeptical or science blogs you have already heard about this, but just in case you haven’t here is a thumbnail sketch. 

Young Earth Creationists and believers in Intelligent Design have been trying to have creationism / intelligent design taught in science classrooms for decades. The creationists are quite clever at changing their tactics to slowly chip away  at science standards. From an article on CNN.com,

 ”The controversy over the teaching of intelligent design came to a head in Pennsylvania, where the Dover School Board voted that ninth-grade students must be read a statement encouraging them to read about intelligent design. A federal judge said the board violated the Constitution in doing so because intelligent design is religious creationism in disguise and injecting it into the curriculum violates the constitutional separation of church and state.”  

So, the creationists started calling it “Intelligent Design”  instead of Creationism and are pushing for “Academic Freedom.” » Continue reading “Texas Science Standards and Why We Care”

Estherar posted this over at Mainstream Parenting Resources. The LA Times just published an article that says California schools have increasing percentages of kids entering without their vaccinations.

The online article has a cool feature which lets you put in your school and find out the risk of disease outbreaks. Even though my family isn’t really affluent, we live in a pretty great area in what is for some reason one of the most reasonably priced apartments in LA. Our landlords are elderly and maybe don’t know what the current rents should be. Also, they never fix anything. The result? A charming apartment in a great neighborhood, as long as you’re willing to put up with kitchen drawers that rain sawdust into the cabinets below every time you open them. We are! Our local elementary school is considered one of the best around.

So I input our school to find out the stats:

–Four of 32 kindergartners in 2008 were exempt from vaccinations.

–The 12.5 percent exemption rate puts the school at high-risk for an outbreak, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Too bad. I don’t know if moving somewhere else in LA will fix the problem, since so many parents seem to be convinced vaccinations are bad. And according to this article, these are “well-educated parents who tend to be skeptical of mainstream beliefs.” It’s amazing to me that the word skeptical can be used in this context. These parents consider themselves the ones who are well researched and in the know. It’s very frustrating.

What will fix the problem? More of the truth getting out! I was happy when vaccinations came up on one of my online bulletin boards, and someone directed the poster over here, to our very own Rational Moms. To me, that says that what we’re doing is making a dent, even a small one. People are reading our stuff and possibly changing their minds. Maybe by the time Zack gets into kindergarten, the vaccine scare will be over.

Rational parents, this is an event not to be missed, especially if your kids love astronomy, like mine do! Astronomers around the world have been organizing 100 hours of astronomy activities for the public! And if you’ve missed the beginning, it’s not quite done yet — you can still join in the fun tonight (look here for activities in your area).

Friday night I got to see the rings of Saturn with my own eyes for the first time. OK, so the light was bent a little by some mirrors and lenses, but it’s still cool that your can see a speck of light in the sky, and if someone points a big enough telescope at it, you can see that it really does have rings, just like in all the pictures! And that’s not all.

» Continue reading “100 Hours of Astronomy!”

I recently did some research over a current issue and had an A-HA! moment.

Over the last year or so, my two and a half year-old has caused me many mealtime headaches. She became stuck on her favorite foods and wasn’t willing to try anything new. More frustratingly, some foods she used to like were suddenly offensive. I made every effort to keep her meals balanced, fresh, and a combination of old and new foods. I also introduced some of the childhood favorites. Aren’t all kids supposed to like pizza and peanut butter/jelly sandwiches? Well, mine didn’t. I’ve even given her foods endorsed by her favorite TV characters (did you know there is an Elmo pizza?). She became pickier and pickier until she was eating a rotation of only seven or eight food items.

» Continue reading “Kitchen Nightmares: The Childhood Edition”