Saturday, February 20, 2010
Snow Sledding Conditions in Prospect Park Brooklyn, NY
The best runs for daredevil sliding in the park were Hill Drive Staircase and Death's Doorway. Both are actually long stone staircases where ice and show have been packed into each step to create a smoothish chute worthy of a Vancouver Olympic luge run. Be careful on these - dads shouldn't bring kids here but go on your own off hours.
Feel free to edit and add to this map for updated conditions - it's set for open collaboration.
Snow Conditions for Sledding in Prospect Park on Google Maps
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
NYTimes: As Girls Become Women, Sports Pay Dividends
lifelong improvements in educational, work and health prospects.
The study showed that increasing girls' sports participation had a
direct effect on women's education and employment. It found that the
changes set in motion by Title IX explained about 20 percent of the
increase in women's education and about 40 percent of the rise in
employment for 25-to-34-year-old women.
Probably worth signing up for that gym class after all!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Wanted: Volunteers, All Pregnant
http://s.nyt.com/u/BGY
Chalk one up for the scientists, who for months have been dispatching door-to-door emissaries across the country to recruit women for an unprecedented undertaking: the largest, most comprehensive long-term study of the health of children, beginning even before they are born.
Authorized by Congress in 2000, the National Children's Study began last January, its projected cost swelling to about $6.7 billion. With several hundred participants so far, it aims to enroll 100,000 pregnant women in 105 counties, then monitor their babies until they turn 21.
It will examine how environment, genes and other factors affect children's health, tackling questions subject to heated debate and misinformation. Does pesticide exposure, for example, cause asthma? Do particular diets or genetic mutations lead to autism?
So much of this will be a waste of time, while a couple of nuggets of insight will pay for everything else.