Techdirt. Stories filed under "babies"

Techdirt. Stories filed under "babies" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "babies"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Big Data On Kid Development Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101208/11452312191/dailydirt-big-data-kid-development.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101208/11452312191/dailydirt-big-data-kid-development.shtml

Measuring the difference between heart rates when a baby inhales and exhales could lead to predictive indicators for whether or not that kid will overcome poverty. For "sensitive" babies, where the difference is large, a stable environment may have a greater effect on the child's future well-being. [url]

Preschool seems to be important for disadvantaged kids, but the benefits for middle class kids are not as clear. So flip a coin, tiger-moms, but some economists might have a good argument for government funded access to preschool for at-risk toddlers. [url]

The 7 Up documentary began in 1964 and followed seven year old kids from different economic backgrounds as they grew up. The latest installment, 56 Up checks in on these people now as they face retirement (or not) -- and presents a fascinating snapshot of society. [url]

Red states and blue states didn't always refer to Republican and Democratic electorates, respectively. Red and blue were frequently used to describe American political affiliations, but which color represented which party was not consistent until relatively recently (ca. 2000) -- for instance, during the Cold War, who wanted to be described as "red" in American politics? [url]
Studies of how linguistic descriptions of color affect the way people perceive colors have rekindled the idea that language can shape how people think. And that's doubleplusgood. [url]
Babies used to be dressed up in all white, but then little boys started only wearing blue... and girls would wear only pink. Again, this convention wasn't settled on for a long time, and it could have easily gone the opposite way (boys in pink, girls in blue). The real loss is in gender neutral colors for children's clothing.... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120210/14562417734 Wed, 22 Aug 2012 11:50:00 PDT Oxford Professor Says Mankind Is Ethically Obligated To Create Genetically Engineered Babies Timothy Geigner http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120821/06370120111/oxford-professor-says-mankind-is-ethically-obligated-to-create-genetically-engineered-babies.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120821/06370120111/oxford-professor-says-mankind-is-ethically-obligated-to-create-genetically-engineered-babies.shtml still patentable, we will have to begin thinking about how such a ruling will impact our lives. Some groups have decided to go the property rights route to assign ownership of DNA. Others wring their hands over how this will impact medicine. But, now that testing for genetic markers in embryos is in vogue, we can finally ask "what about the children?"

The Telegraph put that question to Professor Julian Savulescu, expert in practical ethics at Oxford, and he states, unequivocally, that not only should the genetic testing of embryos for physical illnesses be allowed, but applying those same tests for behavioral genetic markers is mankind's ethical obligation. It should be noted that, currently, outside of a few accepted tests these screenings are illegal, but Savulescu thinks that needs to change.

"Surely trying to ensure that your children have the best, or a good enough, opportunity for a great life is responsible parenting?" wrote Prof Savulescu, the Uehiro Professor in practical ethics. "So where genetic selection aims to bring out a trait that clearly benefits an individual and society, we should allow parents the choice."

There is a word for this kind of mass-screening, one which you won't hear Savulescu utter, and it is called eugenics. The reason many advocates of this kind of screening won't use that word is because it long ago became associated with Nazi philosophy, even though (as you can read in the Wiki article) many other nations did and still do some flavor of eugenics. The United States, for example, has some jurisdictions where testing for diseases (mostly STDs) that could be passed along to children is a requirement prior to attaining a marriage license. Israel has a program called Dor Yeshorim that tests for a multitude of hereditary diseases like Tay-Sachs and Cystic fibrosis. In China, eugenics has taken a more prominent role, with the PRC's Marriage Law requiring a doctor's approval prior to marriage (harsher language against specific illnesses found in previous iterations of the law have been removed over the years).

But what is different about Savulescu's argument is that we are no longer talking about genetic illnesses in the traditional sense, but instead behavioral genetic markers.

"Indeed, when it comes to screening out personality flaws, such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence, you could argue that people have a moral obligation to select ethically better children. They are, after all, less likely to harm themselves and others."

This seems to me to be a gross-oversimplification of the role genetics plays in behavior. While we can all spend the next few weeks in a long-form discussion of whether nature or nurture plays the predominant role in behavioral outcomes of children, I think few would disagree that both are aspects that do in fact play some role. And, while Savulescu seems to make his argument matter-of-factly, other bioethicists disagree. Predictably, many of these criticisms focus on Nazi eugenics to extrapolate the entire field, but not all of them.

Biologists, for instance, point to what occurs in small, isolated populations (i.e. the Dodo bird) when a lack of genetic diversity leads directly to a species extinction. They then point out that the combination of allowing for "designer babies" based on widely accepted culturally preferred traits and the perhaps inevitable monoculture that would result would breed a scenario in which mankind was ripe for massive exposure to a single disease.

Add to all of this the potential for inherent socio-economic lines to be drawn in the sand in terms of health, between those that can afford the testing for what are now patentable isolated genes and those that cannot, and you can see where potential abuse and negative consequences loom around every corner.

That said, I refuse to take a luddite approach to genetic testing in general, or even eugenics as a whole. I admit that I write this entire piece without fully understanding where I stand on the issue, aside from what I think is the rather common sense position of advocating caution. Instead, I open the topic to you, the reader, for the comments section.

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]]> pick-and-choose http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120821/06370120111 Wed, 13 Jun 2012 17:00:00 PDT DailyDirt: Cool-Looking Photography Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100713/00173410188/dailydirt-cool-looking-photography.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100713/00173410188/dailydirt-cool-looking-photography.shtml photography before, and here are just a few more examples.

Family portraits aren't usually made from collages, but when family members are spread out all over the globe, combining Skype video stills will have to suffice. Rear projectors would be a bit better for this.... [url]
People riding bikes without bikes are just floating above the street. It's just so easy to photoshop things out of a picture nowadays. [url]
New moms often enjoy taking a lot of photos of their babies, but some moms also like to see their kid fly. Maybe in a few years, these "floating people" pictures will look like a dated image filter. [url]
Let sleeping babies sleep.. and then take pictures of them in creative ways. Try this at home. [url]
What can you do with a leaf blower and some good indoor lighting? Take some cool pictures or insert joke here. [url]

If you have some more free time, check out this unrelated, non-random Techdirt post.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100713/00173410188 Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Understanding Kids Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100617/1033199866/dailydirt-understanding-kids.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100617/1033199866/dailydirt-understanding-kids.shtml

There's a nascent science studying the phenomenon of children's temper tantrums. All tantrums could have a predictable pattern that might lead to better ways of coping with them and maybe avoiding them someday. [url]

Plenty of parents try to tell their kids to "use words" to describe what they want. Are kids hard-wired for grammar to use their words, though? [url]

While human babies weigh about 6% of the weight of their moms, newborn apes generally weigh about 3% of their mother's weight. Having big babies may have influenced the development of human society, encouraging our ancestors to become more social creatures to care for our kids. [url]

To discover more interesting articles on the human mind, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100617/1033199866 Fri, 8 Oct 2010 13:41:00 PDT The Boy Who Mistook An iPhone For His Mother Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20101004/20080611283/the-boy-who-mistook-an-iphone-for-his-mother.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20101004/20080611283/the-boy-who-mistook-an-iphone-for-his-mother.shtml started referring to any iPhone as "mama." The author, Eric Pape, says that he worries the kid actually thinks the phone is his mother -- nothing that he has regularly held the phone up to his son's ear when his wife calls, or shown the kid pictures of his mother that were taken on the iPhone. Of course, this seems like a bit of an overreaction. I doubt the kid thinks the phone is his mother, as it seems pretty likely that he just thinks iPhones are called "mama," due to association with the word and the phone. Kids are pretty resilient and good at figuring this stuff out, and it won't be long until he does figure out that his mother is called "mama" and a smartphone has an entirely different name. That said, I do still wonder how best to teach kids how to embrace technology without being consumed by technology... or if that's just something kids figure out on their own...

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]]> wouldn't-worry-about-it-too-much http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101004/20080611283 Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:17:40 PDT E*Trade Settles Lindsay Lohan's Milkaholic Lawsuit Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100921/04091111091/e-trade-settles-lindsay-lohan-s-milkaholic-lawsuit.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100921/04091111091/e-trade-settles-lindsay-lohan-s-milkaholic-lawsuit.shtml filed against E*Trade, because one of its commercials involving babies talking to each other mentioned another baby, named Lindsay, who is referred to as a "milkaholic." There's nothing in that commercial that implies the "Lindsay" in question is Lindsay Lohan. The name itself is quite popular, with approximately 250,000 Lindsays around these days. But, still, Lohan's lawyers claimed that it was a right of publicity violation. And, while we were looking forward to the trial, it appears Lohan has some bigger issues to deal with, and somehow has worked out a "settlement" with E*Trade on the case, with the report being that E*Trade actually paid up some money. If that's true, it would almost certainly be for a tiny amount (less than what it would cost the lawyers if the lawsuit were to move forward). Perhaps she can put that spare change to use by paying for some new lawyers.

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]]> who-paid-whom? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100921/04091111091 Tue, 9 Mar 2010 10:16:00 PST Lindsay Lohan Sues E*Trade For $100 Million; Says Baby Was Based On Her Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100309/0742438479.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100309/0742438479.shtml Hurt Locker was based on his life story (but also made him look bad) was going too far, here's an even more ridiculous lawsuit. Dave Barnes was the first of a few of you to alert us to the news that actress Lindsay Lohan is suing E*Trade for $100 million, claiming that one of the babies used in its famous "talking babies" commercials was based on her. The baby -- which was named Lindsay -- is shown as being a "boyfriend-stealing, milkaholic" baby. And, for that, Lindsay say she deserves $100 million in "pain and suffering." I'm trying to decide which makes someone seem more like a baby: a commercial with a silly "milkaholic" baby, or a humorless multi-millionaire starlet suing a financial firm for $100 million over a silly commercial that has talking babies, because she can't take a joke.

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]]> well,-who's-a-baby-now http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100309/0742438479