Feed Your Kids Peanuts, Early and Often, New Guidelines Urge By RONI CARYN RABIN
Peanuts are back on the menu. In a significant reversal from past advice, new national health guidelines call for parents to give their children foods containing peanuts early and often, starting when they’re infants, as a way to help avoid life-threatening peanut allergies.
If broadly implemented, the new guidelines have the potential to dramatically lower the number of children who develop one of the most common and lethal food allergies, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the institute’s director, who called the new approach “game changing.”
Most Distinctive Obituary Euphemism for 'Died' in Each State
By Simon Davis
If you’re an American alive today, chances are you’ve heard or used one of over 100 different euphemisms for death. A common reason many people don’t just say someone has “died” is a desire to not want to appear too harsh. This happens not just in everyday conversation, but also in obituaries we read in newspapers and increasingly online.
Are some expressions for dying more prevalent in obituaries than others? Are there regional variations? To find out the answers to these questions, I reached out to Legacy.com, a leading online provider of paid death notices. According to the data they provided, in 2015, they hosted 2,408,142 obituaries across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Of those, 1,341,870 included one of their 10 most common euphemisms, or the word died.
Most computer science majors in the U.S. are men. Not so at Harvey Mudd By Rosanna Xia
Veronica Rivera signed up for the introduction to computer science class at Harvey Mudd College mostly because she had no choice: It was mandatory. Programming was intimidating and not for her, she thought.
She expected the class to be full of guys who loved video games and grew up obsessing over how they were made. There were plenty of those guys but, to her surprise, she found the class fascinating.
She learned how to program a computer to play “Connect Four” and wrote algorithms that could recognize lines of Shakespeare and generate new text with similar sentence patterns.
When that first class ended, she signed up for the next level, then another and eventually declared a joint major of computer science and math. Cheering her on were professors who had set out to show her that women belonged in computer science just as much as men did.
And as a result, many of Hong Kong’s poor make their way to McDonald’s — not for a meal, but for a good night’s sleep. As the BBC reported, “as night falls, the fast-food restaurant becomes a temporary hostel, attracting dozens of the city’s poorest people.” In the U.S., those non-customers would typically be kicked out, but in Hong Kong, the opposite is true: McDonald’s Hong Kong told the AP that “we welcome all walks of life to visit our restaurants any time” and aims to be “‘accommodating and caring’ to customers who stay a long time in restaurants ‘for their own respective reasons.'”
The man who helped teach Kevin Durant and the Warriors that ‘Life Goes On’ After this man’s life-changing accident, his foundation caught some game-changing attention
BY MARC J. SPEARS
The man in the wheelchair needed help from his friends to go up three steps to get near Kevin Durant in the VIP section. The timing wasn’t the greatest, as it was nearly 1 a.m. at a San Francisco nightclub just weeks after the stunning news of the NBA star’s plans to join the Golden State Warriors. And security guards were making sure he had his space and privacy.
However, something told Durant to let Arthur Renowitzky and his wheelchair through. And once Renowitzky spoke to Durant, the two formed a relationship that remains bonded with a bracelet.
“He just wanted to tell me how he got to that point and how encouraged he still was even through his circumstances,” Durant told The Undefeated. “I thought it was inspiring. He handed me a bracelet and I’ve been wearing it ever since …
“You never know when you’re going to be in contact with angels. I feel like he is one of those guys at just the right time, the perfect time, he was put in my life. Hopefully, he feels the same way.”
THE VOICES IN OUR HEADS Why do people talk to themselves, and when does it become a problem?
By Jerome Groopman
I often have discussions with myself—tilting my head, raising my eyebrows, pursing my lips—and not only about my work. I converse with friends and family members, tell myself jokes, replay dialogue from the past. I’ve never considered why I talk to myself, and I’ve never mentioned it to anyone, except Pam. She very rarely has inner conversations; the one instance is when she reminds herself to do something, like change her e-mail password. She deliberately translates the thought into an external command, saying out loud, “Remember, change your password today.”
Verbal rehearsal of material—the shopping list you recite as you walk the aisles of a supermarket—is part of our working memory system. But for some of us talking to ourselves goes much further: it’s an essential part of the way we think. Others experience auditory hallucinations, verbal promptings from voices that are not theirs but those of loved ones, long-departed mentors, unidentified influencers, their conscience, or even God.
CAN TECHNOLOGY MAKE FOOTBALL SAFER? A high school in Fort Lauderdale is using everything from state-of-the-art helmets to robots to prevent head injuries.
By Nicholas Schmidle
But Kivon went to St. Thomas primarily to play football. The school has produced more pro players than any other high school in the country. By the time Kivon enrolled, the St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders had won eight state championships and two national titles. Moreover, the school had embarked on a potentially radical experiment. The head football coach, Roger Harriott, had been instituting changes to make the game safer. He limited practices to ninety minutes, and got the school to acquire a pair of motorized human-size robots, wrapped in foam, which players could tackle, saving their teammates from unnecessary hits. Harriott hoped to put St. Thomas at the vanguard of football safety while remaining champions.
“Football is just a vehicle to make these kids better young men,” Harriott said. One day this fall, he told his team, “Ultimately, it’s for you to become a champion in life—a champion husband, a champion father, community leader, colleague.”
HitchBot, the robot that had hitchhiked its way across Germany, the Netherlands and across Canada without incident, survived just over two weeks and 300 miles in the United States after being vandalized beyond repair and abandoned on a street in Philadelphia. (hitchBOT)
My father came here illegally. But in many ways he was a red-blooded American
By Hector Becerra
My father was like so many immigrants of his generation from Mexico: Coming north, without proper papers, looking for work and a better life for their families. Over the years, my father and people like him were demonized by those who felt they were ruining California and praised by others who believed their work ethic and labor were a boon to the state.
During the tough times, it was easy to feel like an outsider, alienated for not being American. That wasn’t quite my dad.
He had a sixth-grade education, thanks to a Mexico whose stamina for relentlessly poor governance and knack for driving out its citizens was impressive. So he carved out his own learning, going to night school in L.A. to get his high school degree soon after his arrival.
My father read Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Steinbeck and Melville from our childhood porch in Boyle Heights. In spiral notebooks he composed verses to Mexican songs about his hometown in Jalisco state, like the one he first penned as a teenager, just a few years after his father died when he was 12 — and just a few years before he crossed into the U.S. in the trunk of a car.
By 1980, he had become a legal resident, and no longer had to worry about being caught in a work raid.
STARMAN Neil deGrasse Tyson, the new guide to the “Cosmos.”
By Rebecca Mead
Tyson attended public schools, and was not a distinguished student. He was social, and teachers criticized him for being inattentive. When speaking to other educators, he stresses the importance of reaching not just the A students, who are already likely to succeed, but the B students, who might succeed if they were more deeply engaged by their teachers. He is on the board of the Harlem Educational Activities Fund, which seeks to offer such encouragement to students in public schools. Calvin Sims, a former chairman of the fund, says, “To have someone in Neil’s position talking about these great ideas, and to do it in a humorous and animated way—and to have someone who looks like them do that—I think means the world.” Not long ago, Tyson’s elementary school, P.S. 81, invited him to give a commencement address; he declined. He recalls telling the administrators, “I am where I am not because of what happened in school but in spite of it, and that is probably not what you want me to say. Call me back, and I will address your teachers and give them a piece of my mind.”
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/17/starman
Hollywood sign altered to read 'Hollyweed'
By Laura Nelson
Los Angeles residents awoke New Year's Day to find a prankster had altered the famed Hollywood sign to read "HOLLYWeeD." (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
MY PRISON CELL: LEARNING TO HEAR ON A CARDBOARD PIANO
By Demetrius Cunningham
On my bottom bunk bed, I sat in deep thought. I had an unusual problem. The prison choir that I sang in needed a piano player, and they needed one quickly. I thought to myself, How could I teach myself to play? I had no prior experience with the piano, but I can still remember running down the hallways of my grandmother’s house as a boy. Every time I ran past her old upright piano, I would slam all the keys at the same time. Sometimes in the mornings before school, as I listened to cassette tapes of my favorite R. & B. and gospel songs by Mary J. Blige and John P. Kee, I imagined myself playing the piano. I sang in the church choir from the age of seven on. In the sixth grade, I learned to play the xylophone. I had an uncle who played piano professionally at Las Vegas casinos and on cruise ships. When he came to visit, I sat in awe as he played our upright. Music has been my constant companion. It’s like my DNA has tiny quarter notes infused into it.
One day while I was watching TV in my cell, I flipped past a show on BET that highlighted famous musicians, including the gospel singer Andrae Crouch, who described his first piano. It was made out of cardboard. I had an idea that was literally out of the box.
The first moment I could, I searched for a cardboard box. I wandered by cells, examining the garbage. I rummaged through every trash bag I could find. I soon realized that it was tissue day. Every Tuesday, the institution hands out hundreds of rolls of tissue, one roll per inmate. I knew that there would be plenty of cardboard boxes around. I found a large empty box abandoned at the end of the gallery. I tore off the top flaps and quickly went back to my cell.
Bay Area stalled in a wireless traffic jam By LOUIS HANSEN
Silicon Valley, capital of high-tech and hub of innovation, is stalled in a wireless traffic jam of its own making. Increasing demand for data — driven by the products made by Bay Area tech companies – and lagging infrastructure coupled with intense local politics have helped create the dropped calls, frozen videos and blank web pages on our screens.
Industry analytics company RootMetrics ranks San Jose at 49 and San Francisco at 58 out of 125 metropolitan areas in quality of mobile network service. That puts the Bay Area ahead of Santa Rosa (122) but lagging far behind Modesto and Sacramento (7 and 8).
Germany Grapples With Its African Genocide
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
WATERBERG, Namibia — In this faraway corner of southern Africa, scores of German soldiers lie in a military cemetery, their names, dates and details engraved on separate polished tombstones.
Easily missed is a single small plaque on the cemetery wall that gives a nod in German to the African “warriors” who died in the fighting as well. Nameless, they are among the tens of thousands of Africans killed in what historians have long considered — and what the German government is now close to recognizing — as the 20th century’s first genocide.
A century after losing its colonial possessions in Africa, Germany and its former colony, Namibia, are now engaged in intense negotiations to put an end to one of the ugliest chapters of Europe’s past in Africa.
During German rule in Namibia, called South-West Africa back then, colonial officers studying eugenics developed ideas on racial purity, and their forces tried to exterminate two rebellious ethnic groups, the Herero and Nama, some of them in concentration camps.
One Breath Into This Breathalyzer Can Diagnose 17 Diseases
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer
A single breath into a newfangled breathalyzer is all doctors need to diagnose 17 different diseases, including lung cancer, irritable bowel syndrome and multiple sclerosis, a new study found.
Researchers invited about 1,400 people from five different countries to breathe into the device, which is still in its testing phases. The breathalyzer could identify each person's disease with 86 percent accuracy, the researchers said.
Below is an introduction to the story that follows.
In February, Jennifer Lackey, a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, where I teach journalism, invited me to speak to a class she teaches at the Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison an hour outside of Chicago. Her students, fifteen men, are all serving long sentences, mostly for violent crimes. Some will be at Stateville until they die. I talked with the students about storytelling, and had them complete an exercise in which they described their cells.
I was so taken by what they wrote that I suggested that they develop these stories about the space, which, for some, had been home for twenty years. Over the past ten months, I have worked with them from draft to draft to draft. This process was not without obstacles. Sometimes, Jennifer couldn’t return my marked-up drafts because the prison was on lockdown. One student missed class for a month because, after surgery, he had to wear a knee brace, which the prison considered a potential weapon. Another student was transferred to a different prison. (I continued working with him by mail and phone.) One despaired at my comments and edits, writing to me that “this must be my last draft because clearly I’m incapable of doing it correctly.” But with encouragement and gentle nudging they kept going. Below is one of five of these stories that will appear on the site this week.
—Alex Kotlowitz
MY PRISON CELL: A PLACE KEPT COMPULSIVELY CLEAN
By Ramon Delgado
It’s not uncommon for me to receive a compliment from other inmates who take notice of how neat and organized I keep my cell. I love cleaning. Maybe a little too much.
I’ve been cleaning practically all my life. My mother demanded it from us. I can remember the day my mother put a mop in my hands. I was just six years old. We were living on the second floor, in the back end of a four-unit apartment building. There were five of us in a two-bedroom apartment. While my mother was showing me how to hold the mop handle—one hand at the top of the mop stick and the other in the middle—and how to maneuver it across the floor, my older brother and younger sister were each busy with a small rag in their hands, wiping dust off the few pieces of furniture we owned. This is how we cleaned our house every Saturday morning. So I come by my compulsion honestly.
To bring a divided country together, start with a little spit
By Susan Svrluga
Anita Foeman’s students had just gotten the results from their genetic tests, and they couldn’t wait to talk.
One said her dad cheered when she told him she has Zulu roots. A girl with curly red hair said her family always gathers around a Nativity scene on Christmas Eve and sings carols over the baby Jesus, and this year, after learning that she’s 1 percent Jewish, she said: “We’re going to sing the dreidel song!”
When a white student said that 1 percent of his ancestry was African, two black students sitting next to him gave him a fist bump and said: “Yes! Brother.”
“Some people have never had a happy conversation about race,” Foeman said. But in her class at West Chester University, there’s laughter. Eagerness. And easy connections where there might have been chasms. “Our differences are fascinating,” she said.
At a time when tensions over race and politics are so raw, the stakes, Foeman said, seem particularly high. Her students have been talking all fall about riots, building walls, terrorist attacks, immigration, the election. “You can feel it buzzing around the halls like electricity,” Foeman said.
A Mom Put A Message For Her Teen Son On A Vodka Bottle If He Ever Tried To Drink It People are applauding Cheryl’s “extra” parenting methods.
By Tanya Chen
11 Ways to Be a Better Person in 2017 By ANYA STRZEMIEN
My favorite - #3
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/28/style/ways-to-be-a-better-person-in-2017.html?action=click&contentCollection=fashion®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront
Love of sewing patterns leads to world-class collection
by Jennifer Mcdermott
If a costume designer wanted to recreate a World War I era wraparound dress, a 1940s zoot suit or even a bodice from 1875, the sewing patterns are in Rhode Island.
The University of Rhode Island has the largest known collection of sewing patterns in the world, according to the collection's curator, Joy Spanabel Emery, and the United States Institute for Theatre Technology.
About 50,000 are on paper and 62,000 are in an electronic database. They're at the university because of Emery's love of patterns.
Emery donated her personal collection of patterns and periodicals to the university years ago and has painstakingly sorted through the donations sent there as word spread about the growing repository. Three more boxes full just arrived to be added to the overflowing filing cabinets.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-12-patterns-world-class.html#jCp
FLYERS’ WAYNE SIMMONDS IS TRYING TO ADD SOME COLOR TO HOCKEY He’s having his best season ever, and he wants more than NHL fans to know that
BY DARYL BELL
Philadelphia Flyers right winger Wayne Simmonds is on a mission to change hockey’s appearance.
Enjoying arguably his greatest season ever, Simmonds wants to be revered as more than a player. He wants to be thought of as a role model, and he believes he’s on his way to becoming one.
An African-Canadian, Simmonds is an oddity. According to the National Hockey League, only 16 players of African descent have played in a game this season.
“I’m playing the game I love,” he said. “For me, I’m just trying to set an example for kids who are like me, who have been in my situation. They can look up to me as an example. If I can make it, they can make it, too. When I was a young kid, I looked up at people as inspiration. Willie O’Ree was the first African [-Canadian] to play. He was my goal.”
Simmonds knows his history and is aware that he’s earning a lofty place in NHL lore. He’s playing well enough to earn an All-Star team berth. His quiet but confident play and demeanor stands out on the rink. It also stands out away from the arena.
A bachelor millionaire, Simmonds can arguably walk through any black neighborhood with his uniform on and not be recognized. By contrast, because of his hockey notoriety, he would need a police escort to trek through a white enclave dressed in a suit.
As a black woman who wears her hair straight, I was used to using products geared for women of color. However, when I lived in the Middle East, I was forced to try something different. When I went to my local salon and asked about a perm, they had no idea what I was talking about, and recommended I get a Keratin Hair Treatment instead.
I've always been game to try new things, so I thought, "What the heck."
Long story short, I got the Keratin and have been using this for the past five years.
When I first started out getting the treatment, the formula was really strong, resulting in face masks for everyone in the place.
Thankfully, they have steadily improved on it and now there is very little odor. I still made sure the room was well ventilated, but it wasn't a big deal at all.
The reason I'm writing about this is two-fold.
First, to introduce folks to it who might not have considered this as an alternative to straightening their hair.
And second, to let you know this is something you can do at home.
Truth be told, now that I'm back in the US, I knew the local black salons wouldn't provide the service, and I wasn't interested in searching to find someplace else. Nor was I interested in paying the enormous fees that are usually charged for the service. I've always been comfortable taking care of my hair, including giving myself perms and regularly coloring it, so I researched and found the product on Amazon and did it myself for the first time three week ago.
I was thrilled with the result.
In a nutshell, here's how it works.
1) Wash your hair with a clarifying shampoo that strips your hair of any product. Your hair will feel rough.
2) Blow dry it thoroughly.
3) Apply the Keratin Hair Treatment to tiny sections of your hair, using a small-tooth comb to make sure it's on every strand. Leave on for about 30 minutes.
4) Do Not Wash Out.
5) Blow dry it thoroughly.
6) Flat iron hair.
7) Wait until the next day to wash it. I use a Keratin Shampoo and Conditioner that helps to prolong the treatment.
That's it.
If you're still a little queasy about doing this, check out this video.
Here are the products I used:
This is the shampoo I used, along with the Keratin Hair Treatment and comb.
A regular small-tooth comb works just as well.
This is the shampoo & conditioner I use.
Once the application is complete, it lasts about six months. I can walk in the rain, fog, and other damp weather conditions without my hair curling up. My hair feels healthy and strong.
I wash it; blow dry it and flat iron it and I'm able to wake up with my hair ready to go until it's time to wash it again.
As I've said many times before, I should have been in sales because when I find something that I like, I want the world to know about it.
An App to Help Black Women With Hair Care By CRYSTAL MARTIN
Ms. Thompson and her longtime friend Jennifer Lambert introduced their app to digitize the hair salon vetting process for black and Hispanic women, a group largely ignored by the beauty app craze.
“Sometimes you get lucky with your 11 hours of Yelp research, but we’re trying to streamline that process,” Ms. Lambert said.
Swivel users select a desired service and indicate their hair type. The services list includes traditionally black hairstyles — cornrows, twist-outs, Bantu knots, silk press — and addresses hair types like curly, kinky and transitioning from relaxed hair to natural. Based on that information and the user’s location (Swivel is available only in New York City at the moment), the app offers a list of salons selected for their skill and service level. Either Ms. Lambert or Ms. Thompson has visited each of the salons on the app.
Teaching Computer Programming Through Making in Oakland’s Fruitvale
By Queena Sook Kim
Making computer programming a part of the K-13 curriculum is becoming a rallying call in the United States. But just because you teach a subject doesn’t mean you get kids interested in it. So the real challenge is how to get kids, who might not necessarily be into computers, to pursue a career in coding?
Google and MIT’s Media Lab are trying to answer that question at Code Next, an after-school program located in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland. Coding programs put on by tech companies are often in a Google office or held at a local school. But Code Next is a storefront space in a shopping center next to the Fruitvale BART Station. The idea is to capture high school students from this working-class neighborhood.
From Russia With Blackness: Terrell J. Starr, Black America’s Russian Translator Starr is an expert on Russian and Eastern European politics, and he has a few warnings for us.
By Jason Johnson
Terrell J. Starr has been Columbused by many in the mainstream media in the last several weeks. As the Russian hack on the 2016 election and President-elect Donald Trump’s relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin dominate the headlines, outlets are looking for a fresh take on Russian politics and American vulnerabilities.
Terrell J. Starr—tall, black, lanky, with a Detroit accent, and who is just as likely to lay out facts in Russian as he is to compare Putin to Marlo Stansfield from The Wire—has stepped into the gap.
He may not “look” like your typical Russian/Eastern European political expert, but with a Fulbright scholarship and degrees in journalism and ethnic conflict, Terrell J. Starr just might be black Generation X’s best chance to understand what is happening in this postelection Trump/Putin world.
How Ford turned thousands of employees into inventors
By Steven Overly
To jump-start its inventive culture, the company implemented a number of internal initiatives, from altering its financial incentives for inventors to creating companywide innovation challenges. The efforts appear to be paying off. As of Tuesday, Ford is poised to have more U.S. utility patents granted this year than any other automaker, according to agency data.
These patents include a flying drone that acts as a lookout for your self-driving car. A filter that purifies air conditioner condensation into drinkable water. And, more recently, an electric wheelchair that loads itself into the car.
A black doctor barred from helping on a flight gets an apology — and triggers a policy change
By Carolyn Y. Johnson
In October, physician Tamika Cross took a Delta Air Lines flight home from the wedding of a childhood friend. A man fell ill and a call went out for medical help. But when Cross tried to come to his aid, a flight attendant dismissed the young, black doctor. "We are looking for actual physicians or nurses," the flight attendant said, according to Cross. The story, shared via Facebook, triggered thousands of comments, and an outpouring of stories from minorities and women who had faced skepticism from people who didn't think they looked like doctors.
Now, Cross's experience has helped trigger changes in Delta policy. As of Dec. 1, the airline has stopped requiring medical professionals to furnish credentials before assisting passengers.
What It’s Really Like to Work in Hollywood*
(*If you’re not a straight white man.)
The statistics are unequivocal: Women and minorities are vastly underrepresented in front of and behind the camera. Here, 27 industry players reveal the stories behind the numbers — their personal experiences of not feeling seen, heard or accepted, and how they pushed forward. In Hollywood, exclusion goes far beyond #OscarsSoWhite. (Interviews have been edited and condensed.)
Love’s in Need of Love Today Introducing Wonder Week, a toast to Stevie’s greatness—and a reminder to appreciate the artists who inspire you, while they’re still around to hear it.
By Jack Hamilton
He’s going home for Christmas. But most people at his prestigious college have no idea what he’s facing there.
By Valerie Strauss
Here is a new, personal and moving piece by Wood that reflects not only his own experiences but that of millions of other students who come from impoverished backgrounds.
By Zachary Wood
On Thanksgiving Day, my uncle, who’s 48, asked me if I could help him find a job. My dad, who works late hours to ensure that I attend college, was at work, so I was the only one around who could assist him.
While we worked together, he kneeled on the floor and I sat on the pile of luggage that had formed in the living room as my family gathered for the holiday.
But before we applied, I had to set up his email account and show him how to use it.
After setting up email for him, we began working on his resume. He had never used Microsoft Word before and did not know what a resume should consist of, so the process was tedious. I figured the best way to proceed would be for me to ask him questions about previous experiences and qualifications. As he described each of his previous jobs and credentials, I tried to organize them into coherent sections. After editing what I’d written, he read over it and we began filling out job applications.
As an African-American college student from a poor family, I frequently have to help my family navigate tasks that students from upper-income backgrounds don’t need to explain to their families. But I’m not the only one.
This doctor’s prescription for the game changed tennis Dr. Robert ‘Whirlwind’ Johnson helped shape the careers of tennis greats Arthur Ashe, Althea Gibson and others BY KELLEY D. EVANS
http://theundefeated.com/features/this-doctors-prescription-for-the-game-changed-tennis/
