Leave home without them

Leave home without them - A US eatery’s ban on children under six makes Fenella Souter wistful for a kid-free cappuccino.

American restaurateur Mike Vuick runs a casual bar and restaurant called McDains in Monroeville, a suburb of Pittsburgh. It’s nothing special, but last year Vuick achieved a degree of fame when he announced a ban on children under six. In some of the online commentary that followed, one could be forgiven for thinking Vuick had called for their execution. Perhaps more surprising, however, was the support. He claimed business rose 20 per cent and that he received 2000 emails, running 11:1 in his favour, some from parents.

The kids aren't alright … in American café McDains at least. (Illustration by Tanya Cooper)

An article about the ban on Yahoo! Shine attracted 20,000 comments, many arguing it was the parents who were the problem, not the squealing children, although that really boils down to the same thing unless Vuick could vet the parents before admitting the family.

On Twitter, #youngkidsshouldbebannedfrom became a trending topic, with tweeters suggesting the banning of small children from places that ranged from public pools to supermarkets to aircraft. (It wouldn’t wash in Australia, where restrictions on children may be open to challenge under the Age Discrimination Act.) Said one: “Don’t ban them. Just require a muzzle and a leash whenever out in public.”

Extremism aside, Vuick seems to have voiced what many are too scared to say in public, because to suggest small children shouldn’t be brought into traditionally adult spaces is to invite accusations of being “anti-child”, and that’s almost as bad as not liking dolphins.

Pitted against the nobler ideals of children’s rights, the liberation of mothers from the lonely bondage of home life, the enriching of community as Oliver and Serenity sip a babycino with the grown-ups, the so-called “anti-child” lot are on a hiding to nothing. How feeble to articulate the real reason they don’t want excitable groups of small children in cafes and restaurants – that being: it’s annoying. At risk of looking like self-absorbed meanies, they’re forced to fall back, lamely, on health and safety arguments. The perils of hot liquids, say, or of waiters tripping over tiny tots; and shouldn’t the little ones be napping rather than experiencing mussels scented with kaffir lime?

Family values have the upper hand right now and they dominate the public conversation. There are regular calls for everything to be made “suitable for children and families”, from Big Brother to New Year’s Eve, from topless beaches to chilli crab. With a few exceptions – strip clubs, casinos, the TAB – children are to be welcomed everywhere.

The cafe has become the new crèche. Flash mobs of yummy mummies descend with a shiny air of ownership, ponytails swinging as they park colossal prams and strollers and do a lot of fiddling with large bags and small children.

Most parents do their best to keep their kids settled but some appear to mistake cafes and restaurants for playrooms. Perhaps they think the child-free patrons are bored and would enjoy the enlivening effect of their children’s antics. The other day in a tiny establishment nearby, where there are sometimes eight or nine babies and toddlers plus their mothers (sometimes fathers, although fathers tend not to flock), one small child was racing little cars along the floor while another took Buzz Lightyear for a fly around the tables. A third settled for banging on the table and a fourth looked perilously close to falling on a fork. The room was black with strollers. It’s the same in hundreds of other cafes.

I admit I’m torn. Part of me finds it charming. Life! In all its vigour! Part of me wishes the mummy mafia were elsewhere. Or at least, not here in such numbers. What happened to playgroups held at each other’s homes, or in parks or halls, where kids could run free without disturbing others? Too downmarket? Nothing to buy?

It may be merely another example of the increasingly blurred division between the lives of adults and children, just as adult and child fashions have blurred, but one suspects there’s also a sense of parental entitlement operating that isn’t actually about the kids. A case, rather, of parents feeling it’s their right to take their children wherever they, the parents, wish to be. Hooked on a sophisticated, consumerist way of life, they are reluctant to let parenthood interrupt it, even if it means others around them – including their own children – have to suffer. The result is a kind of mandatory public sharing of the difficult years of child rearing.

One young mother I know recalls a conversation with a friend who had a new baby and was complaining about the difficulty of keeping up her previous level of partying and socialising. “I said to her, ‘But you’re a mother now; you’ve got a baby’, and she said, ‘Well, I don’t see why my life should be put on hold.’ ”

On the other hand, women, especially mothers, have been locked out of public life and public spaces for centuries. Perhaps this is a reclamation and should be applauded. It can be lonely and alienating being a new mother; the chance to talk to others in an adult setting is seductive. And I still remember how wounded I felt, as a young single mother myself, when two of my childless friends primly announced that my three-year-old “interrupted their lifestyle” and would I mind not bringing him with me.

But back to that ban … Complaining online about McDains and the “backlash against children”, one incensed American mother wrote that she made an effort to expose her daughter to arts and culture, and bans like these would hinder that program. Her daughter knew what to order at a Thai restaurant, knew how to use chopsticks, often went to art galleries, had a passport and had regularly flown. Her daughter was three. It’s hard to imagine those were the child’s preferred activities.

Apart from anything else, what’s going to be left for her to experience? I suppose there’s McDains when she turns six. ( smh.com.au )

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Keep fit with your family

Keep fit with your family - Set a good exercise example and kids will follow suit. If you want to change the way your family eats and exercises, then expect a challenge, says Dr Mary Gavin, co-author of Fit Kids (Dorling Kindersley). But hang in there. Dr Gavin says the lessons you impart today may become the health principles your child practices forever. Here she details five ways to get your family fit and fabulous.

Lead by example

Adult family members are important role models. Make the effort to eat well and exercise often and talk about it too. "Talk about why you eat fruit as a snack, take an exercise class or go for walks," Dr Gavin says.
Start young

Don't wait until your child has a weight problem before you instigate healthy eating and exercise habits. It's much easier to maintain a healthy weight than it is to lose weight.

Exercise together

Make it a habit for the family to be active rather than sedentary. Take a walk after dinner, play in the park, walk the dog or crank up the music and dance. This burns energy and brings you together as a family.

Cook together

Research shows kids are more likely to try meals they had a hand in cooking. It's the perfect way to introduce them to healthy fare such as vegetables or low-fat meats. "They gain an understanding of healthy ingredients and older kids enjoy having the authority to select and prepare foods they like," Dr Gavin says.

Eat together

Eating a meal as a family sends a positive message about nutrition. Kids see their parents eating healthy food, which may inspire them to give it a try too. In addition, mums and dads will get the chance to offer nutritious foods, become aware of their child's likes and dislikes and enjoy sharing in their lives through casual conversation. ( bodyandsoul.com.au )

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The kids are cooking

The kids are cooking - Since the tender age of four, third grader Najya Indra loves hanging out in the kitchen and helping her mother cook.

The eight-year-old can now prepare a classic nasi goreng (fried rice), fried tempeh and spaghetti.

Taking her food and cooking seriously, she said she helped the maid employed at her house prepare food daily. Good practice for the aspiring chef.

Cooking is often considered an adult activity as it involves sharp knives and burning stoves. Cooking techniques can be complex, but above all, require creativity and passion. Despite all this, many children enjoy cooking. And with the right supervision and guidance, they can excel at it.

Know your fruit: One of the presenters of Koki Cilik about to sow a ripe pumpkin

TV personality chef Farah Quinn said cooking, for children, was like any other activity. “Some children are good in sports, some are good in music; and some are good at cooking,” she went on.

“When you see your children are talented in the kitchen, you should support and help them develop that skill,” she said in a telephone interview.

Over the past few years, television cooking shows have popularized cooking and made it a fun activity for children. Famous British chef Jamie Oliver encourages kids in one of his TV shows to learn how to cook so they can eat more healthily. Those subscribing to cable television will find Australia’s Junior Masterchef an endearing cooking competition for young chefs.

Local TV stations also have their own cooking shows for children, like Koki Kecil on DAAI TV Koki Cilik on Trans7 — both translating as Little Chef. In Koki Cilik, the little chefs travel across Indonesia to learn about local food and try various recipes.

Koki Cilik producer Muhammad Asri Rasma said children and parents both enjoyed watching the show.

“The basic idea is to introduce good food to children; to show children that cooking is not that difficult; and to promote the nation’s culinary dishes to children,” Asri said recently at a café in Trans Corp.’s building.

“We want children to know about healthy foods and not eat junk food all the time,” he said.

Koki Cilik is aired five days a week, highlighting that anything dealing with food here is always going
to be popular.

Through cooking, Asri said children could also learn about different delicacies from across the archipelago. They could also learn about different cultures and even different stove types.

“We once did a story about stoves made of clay in Ternate,” he said. Asri recalled the little chefs also tagging along with fishermen, watching how they caught fish and how locals prepared it.

For Asri, producing a children’s cooking show has also expanded his knowledge of food. “I now know which food items are nutritious, which ones are bad and have lots of fat and cholesterol,” he said. His show has a segment informing children about nutrition.

Twelve-year-old Ardhia Pramesti Regita Larasati, one of the seven little chefs in Koki Cilik, said her cooking skills had greatly improved as a result of being involved in the show.

“I already knew how to cook but after being one of the little chefs I became a lot better at it,” she said. Laras, as she’s popularly called, has now been in the show for 10 months.

She loves the fact that cooking allows her to be creative.

“We can create our own dishes. We can add a little bit of this and that to our food. We can adjust our cooking,” she said.

Another aspect she enjoys about cooking is learning about different spices. She loves tauco — soy paste — which she once mixed in an omelette.

Laras practices the recipes presented on the Koki Cilik show at home. “My mom, friends and neighbors will taste the dishes.”

Her job at Koki Cilik has given her the chance to see Flores, Ambon, Manado, Padang, Lombok, Sumbawa and Pekanbaru..

Psychologist Rose Mini said children liked to cook because they enjoyed having a go at activities they saw adults partake in.

“This helps boost their confidence,” she said, adding this was beneficial for their intrapersonal
development.

Cooking also helps develop children’s intelligence and coordination, as they learn how to follow recipes and use their hands while manipulating food.

Cooperating with their siblings or friends while cooking also develops their interpersonal skills. All this, she said, makes cooking a great activity to help children develop in a holistic way.

Najya, who has been living in Bandung for the last two years, said she became interested in cooking by watching her mother cook. Cooking, she said, brings her happiness.

For Najya, the more complex the food preparation, the better. One of her favorite recipes at the moment is sayur asem, a tamarind-based vegetable soup.

Too much flour?: Koki cilik presenter Ardhia Pramesti Regita Larasati on the set with music band Kuburan.“There so many spices in sayur asem,” she said.

But before reaching Najya’s level, Farah said children who were just starting to cook should be given simple recipes.

“Keep it simple. Don’t choose recipes that take a lot of time and require a lot of chopping,” she said.

Farah’s first attempt at cooking when she was a child was to bake cookies, which allowed her to play with flour, sugar and eggs.

Farah explained it was good to introduce cooking to children at a young age as long as parents or guardians made sure it was safe. Parents or guardians need to ensure their children are tall enough to reach the stove before allowing them to use it themselves.

“If you work near fire and if the child’s not tall enough, hot things can spill. So keep in mind your children’s height,” she said.

A four-year-old can be taught to stir egg yolks or play with flour, she went on.

“But until they can really master cooking, they should always be supervised, because safety comes first,” she said. ( thejakartapost.com )

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PMS link to baby blues

PMS link to baby blues. Pre-menstrual syndrome and postnatal depression are closely related to the 'cold turkey' experienced by addicts trying to give up drugs, according to research.

Scientists have discovered that all three conditions are caused by the same chemical change in a part of the brain which deals with anxiety and stress. Their findings could lead to new treatments for PMS and baby blues, as well as cures for hangovers and aids for addicts trying to conquer their habit.

The common factor is a chemical 'messenger' in the brain called GABA, which dulls circuits responsible for anxiety and stress. GABA is triggered by narcotics and tranquillisers. But researchers found it is also affected by progesterone, the natural steroid produced during pregnancy and when women reach the end of a monthly cycle. The hormone enhances the effect of GABA in the brain, helping it to calm and soothe.

But at the end of pregnancy and just before menstruation, levels of progesterone suddenly drop. At these times GABA is unable to work properly, triggering the symptoms of stress, anxiety and mood swings associated with PMS and postnatal depression. Because drugs act on the same part of the brain, cold turkey has very similar side effects.

Researchers at the Allegheny University of the Health Sciences in Philadelphia investigated the inner workings of the brain by giving rats progesterone for several weeks before then suddenly withdrawing it. They found that GABA immediately lost some of its calming properties and the rats showed symptoms of anxiety. According to the experts, the sudden withdrawal of sedatives such as alcohol and drugs has exactly the same affect.

If science can find drugs to boost the effects of GABA, they could be used to ease the tension, stress and mood swings of PMS and the symptoms of postnatal depression and hangovers.

Can Prozac beat PMS?

For two weeks every month, Shelley Machin's life was 'sheer hell.' The mother of two crouched weeping on the sofa, unable to answer the door, make dinner or look after her baby son, Tom. Then her moods would swing so wildly that Shelley would scream and throw things at her husband Tony.

'I was a monster,' says Shelley. 'Every month, before my period, I was convinced I was going mad. I'd repeat sentences over and over again, break crockery and suffer panic attacks that were so bad I thought I was having a heart attack. My body ached so much I thought I would explode. And then, two days after I started bleeding, calm would descend again.'

Shelley is one of the 1.5 million women who have such severe PMS that it affects their health and disrupts life with work, family and friends.

For some of these, a new and controversial medical development could spell the end to their suffering.

Prozac is the first prescription medication to be approved for the treatment of PMS. Professor Shaughn O'Brien, a consultant gynaecologist at North Staffordshire NHS hospital, has been prescribing Prozac for over four years. 'I would say that 80 per cent of my patients with moderate to severe PMS have been helped by Prozac,' he says.

Prozac is one of a class of anti-depressants called SSRI's that work by increasing the amount of serotonin, the 'feel-good hormone' in the brain. The recent studies, conducted in the U.S. and by University College, London, suggest the drug's efficiency in alleviating both emotional and physical symptoms of PMS.

'Traditionally, PMS was thought to be caused by a hormone imbalance,' says Professor O'Brien. 'But it's now been established that hormone levels are normal and don't fluctuate throughout the woman's cycle.

'Basically, the body is reacting in an abnormal way to normal hormone levels. This reaction is thought happen in the brain, rather than the body, and to to involve the neurotransmitter serotonin. This is why Prozac, which inhibits the reuptake of serotonin, is effective.

'The amazing thing about these studies is that even physical symptoms such as bloating and sore breasts are alleviated by SSRIs,' says O'Brien. 'At present the reason is not clear. It's probably to do with our perception and response to pain. Because our nerve impulses are modified by serotonin, it influences the way we feel pain.'

Shelley was started on 20mg of Prozac (the lowest dose) every morning. 'For the first few days, I felt a bit nauseous, but this soon wore off, and within six weeks I noticed an incredible improvement,' she says.

'I now no longer feel the world's coming to an end for two weeks every month. I'm less anxious, so much calmer and, most of all, nicer to my husband and the children. My body doesn't ache the way it used to, and I sleep better. Sure, I still have my off days, but I don't know if these are related to my period or not. Prozac has changed my life.'

However, not all the medical profession holds with this view of Prozac as a 'miracle drug'. There are fears that patients turn to a quick-fix pill too quickly, without dealing with other lifestyle issues.

'We see Prozac as a last resort, not a first remedy,' says Christine Baker of the National Association for Pre-Menstral Syndrome.'There are many other non-prescription treatments that should be pursued first. Women should alter their lifestyle to avoid stress, eat a diet rich in magnesium and low in salt and sugar and take regular exercise. Evening Primrose Oil, to soothe breast pain, can also help.'

Consultant gynaecologist, Dr Katherina Dalton, the first doctor to describe PMS as a syndrome in 1953, is also sceptical. 'In my opinion, an SSRI cannot help physical symptoms. The correct treatment is to treat with the hormone progesterone, combined with a three-hourly diet high in carbohydrate. If there are long gaps between food, the blood sugar falls, and symptoms worsen.'

Dr Dalton also feels that the world of medicine has moved on since Prozac. 'There are now far more effective SSRI's, such as Seroxat, with far fewer side-effects,' she says. ( dailymail.co.uk )

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Breaking the Human Speed Limit

Breaking the Human Speed Limit. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt secured his claim as the world’s fastest human in August when he ran 100 meters in 9.58 seconds, reaching a top speed of nearly 28 miles per hour. One day, no doubt, someone will sprint faster still. Perhaps by then, scientists may better understand why all speed records made have eventually been broken.

Statisticians have long tried to calculate the upper limits of human speed. One recent estimate, published last year in the Journal of Experimental Biology, put the quickest possible time for 100 meters at 9.48 seconds. That prediction was based largely on past performance and the pace at which current records are falling. But while statistical exercises provide fodder for speculation, no one really knows the limit of human speed —both because scientists still can’t fully explain the blend of biology and physics that separates athletes like Bolt from the rest of the world, and because unforeseen technologies can push athletic achievement beyond the merely human.

“The more you understand biomechanics, and the more technologically advanced you become, the more you become capable of intervening,” says physiologist and biomechanics expert Peter Weyand of Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Those interventions have become both hailed and dreaded, as they often end up casting a shadow over organized sports. This summer, when little-known German swimmer Paul Biedermann beat Olympic champion Michael Phelps in the 200-meter freestyle, Biedermann seemed unsure whether to credit his swimming or his newfangled polyurethane swimwear: “I hope there will be a time when I can beat Michael Phelps without the suit,” Biedermann told sportswriters, some of whom dubbed the new swimsuits “doping by wardrobe.”

Technological innovations that confer a competitive edge have paralleled advances in understanding the physiology of human athletic performance, says Rick Neptune, a mechanical engineer at the University of Texas at Austin. “When they intersect, you start to see world records get broken,” he says. “We can’t say in the future which will matter more, as the rules of competition adjust.” In the current issue of Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, Neptune chronicles how improvements in equipment design have a history of pushing racing past its natural boundaries.

“It’s not clear where that boundary is until you’ve crossed it,” he says. For example, in 1997 he witnessed one of the first international speed skating competitions with widespread use of klapskates, which reduce friction and maximize muscle force by allowing the boot of the skate to pivot away from the blade. At a single World Cup competition in Calgary, Canada, he watched 14 world records devoured, one heat after another — all owing to the new skates. The International Skating Union ultimately allowed klapskates to remain, saying they had revolutionized the sport and were widely available to any competitor.

Future conflicts might be avoided as scientists better define the basis for human ability. “It’s surprising how little we understand when it comes to tying performance to our physiology and anatomy,” says evolutionary biologist Thomas Roberts of Brown University in Providence, R.I. “We don’t completely understand the basis for top speed.” ( sciencenews.org )

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Brain Has an Innate Sense of Geometry

Brain Has an Innate Sense of Geometry. Despite minimal exposure to the regular geometric objects found in developed countries, African tribal people perceive shapes as well as westerners, according to a new study.

The findings, published online in an “Early View” edition of Psychological Science, suggested that the brain’s ability to understand shapes develops without the influence of immersion in simple, manufactured objects.

“In terms of perceiving the world … either genetics or the natural world will give you the right type of experiences,” said lead author Irving Biederman, an expert on perception and the Harold Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience at USC College.

Biederman and his team specifically measured subjects’ sensitivity to “non-accidental” properties of objects, such as whether they have straight or curved edges.

A theory of shape recognition developed by Biederman holds that the brain is more sensitive to non-accidental properties - which stay the same as an object rotates in space - than to metric properties that vary with orientation.

In one experiment, subjects were asked to identify which of two geometric objects was an exact match to a sample object. The one that didn’t match differed either in a non-accidental or metric property.

The researchers found that Western college students and members of the semi-nomadic Himba tribe of northwestern Namibia, a rural area bordering Angola, both showed greater sensitivity to non-accidental properties.

The findings have an incidental implication: Parents can probably toss the beloved shape sorter on the large heap of educational toys toddlers do not really need.

Shape sorters may have other potential benefits such as fine motor training. And some children simply enjoy them. But Biederman questioned the main advertised benefit of the toys.

“Your kids will grow up being able to see shapes just fine without specific training,” he said.

Most members of the Himba have never seen a computer or television, do not use a phone and have only handmade tools, Biederman said.

The Himba also lack words for many shapes, including squares, circles and triangles.

Nevertheless, Himba and university student volunteers responded virtually identically to variations in shape in sorting experiments on a laptop computer.

“The bottom line is that the Himba differ not at all from individuals living in what is, arguably, the most artifactual of environments [Los Angeles],” the authors stated.

“The experiment offers, to our knowledge, the most rigorous assessment of the effects of exposure to modern artifacts on the representation of shape.”

The research team went deep into tribal territory to find nomadic groups that would have had almost no contact with manufactured objects. Each six-day excursion in a four-wheel drive vehicle took the research team a full day’s drive or more from Opuwo, the last township on the edge of Himba lands.

Biederman’s collaborators were USC graduate students Xiaomin Yue and Mark Lescroart along with Jules Davidoff of the University of London. The National Science Foundation funded the research. ( nsf.gov )

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Toxic Playgrounds

Toxic Playgrounds. No kid should ever play in arsenic. Especially at school. Yet many probably do, according to findings of a study presented today.

Howard Mielke of Tulane University's Center for Bioenvironmental Research and his colleagues were concerned about risks to children posed by old-style pressure treated wood, the type that has been infused with a chromated-copper-arsenic concoction to limit deterioration from rot and insects. This town is a veritable termite capital, so it made a reasonable place to look for treated wood.

Mielke’s group carried a portable X-ray fluorescence instrument into playgrounds to survey for arsenic. And they found it at 36 percent of the sites visited. A pilot study, this investigation only examined 38 playgrounds, but spanned the entire New Orleans metropolitan area.

“The irony,” Mielke contends, “is that if you want to find arsenic in soil, go to a child’s play area with wood structures.” The areas will likely be pressure treated with the CCA combo and leach substantial quantities of this carcinogen and neurotoxic agent into soil.

At each tainted play area, the researchers grabbed a bit of soil and took it back to the lab for digesting in one-molar nitric acid, a solution meant to mimic the pH of a child’s stomach.

“And what we found,” Mielke says, “is that the median arsenic concentration was on the order of 57 parts per million. This compares with the median of 1.5 ppm in soils generally throughout the city of New Orleans.” The play-yard median is also more than four times Louisiana’s permissible limit for arsenic in soil, the scientists reported here at the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry.

The most egregious example the scientists turned up happened to be at an elementary school with no pressure-treated wood structures. Here, treated wood had been chipped and used as a cushioning ground surface around slides, swings and other equipment from which a child might fall. That’s not a legal use of such wood, since it’s supposed to be disposed of as hazardous waste. And with good reason. These chips contained 813 to 1,654 ppm of leachable arsenic.

As soon as Mielke’s group informed the school of those sky-high arsenic concentrations, the school replaced the tainted chips with untreated bark.

And Mielke predicts New Orleans’ arsenic hazard will not prove unique: “I would expect to see it all over the country.” For decades, CCA-treated lumber was the wood of choice, nationally, for play structures, picnic tables, decks and fencing.

That CCA-treated wood leaches arsenic is anything but new. I wrote a cover story on concerns about risks that this wood might pose a few years back. It was at the time the federal government was imposing a ban on arsenic-treated wood for structures that might make contact with bare skin. I would have thought playgrounds – especially in schools and daycare settings – would have replaced any of the toxic wood.

Hardly, Mielke says. “There’s been a movement, fairly recent, to ban CCA-treated wood, but we have an enormous amount that is still out there.” The cost of cleaning it up isn’t enormous, perhaps a few grand per playground (his estimate from having worked to clean up several in town), but still beyond the discretionary budgets of cash-strapped parks and schools.

So what should managers of playgrounds do when they find an arsenic problem? Good question, Mielke says, because “if we try to remove that soil, we don’t know where to put it.” Costs of moving it are also extraordinarily high and can prove a public-relations nightmare. “People coming into a play area with moon suits on and special equipment to try to dig contaminated materials out” can scare parents.

In most cases, Mielke says, the most cost-effective treatment may be to simply paint exposed CCA-treated structures. For soil contamination, this biogeochemist recommends tarping the ground with permeable landscape fabric and then covering it with six to eight inches of clean fill dirt. “We’re using Mississippi River silt and sand, which contains very low levels of arsenic, lead and other metals.”

Parents shouldn’t expect to be informed where tainted play areas are suspected. There are no requirements that playground managers survey for arsenic in soil. “And we found that when we were going to take samples at child-care centers, we quickly learned they don’t want to know the results,” Mielke says. At least not until after any remediation was completed. At a minimum, they could face liability issues if they learned they had a problem and didn’t immediately shut down until tests confirmed the area was clean.

“So for our study, we agreed to take the samples and not give them the results until after we were done [cleaning up the site].” Which offered them plausible deniability of any preexisting problem.

“The take-home message, Mielke says, “is that there needs to be a much larger emphasis on the quality of play areas for children.” In this study, where arsenic was found, “78 percent of the soil samples were greater than the state standard. That makes it worthwhile surveying play areas, generally, for this problem.” ( sciencenews.org )

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