Bike helmet that smells bad when it's cracked

This is cool. A bike helmet made with lots of little capsules of some stuff that smells bad. If a kid drops his helmet, and it cracks, he'll know because of the smell (and not want to put it back on).

And I guess if you find your kid lying on the sidewalk next to his bike, and the helmet smells bad, you know he's had quite a hit on the head.

Baby slings and suffocation

The federal government has issued a warning about baby slings. The kid who recently died and caused the warning was in a Sling Rider. Apparently there are two issues:

• Babies can press their noses against the fabric and suffocate, like SIDS.
• Babies can get into a curved position where their head moves forward and cuts off air.

Note that this is not the type of baby carrier where the baby is vertical and belly-to-mom.

Pink is the new black

Pharyngula points out a Toys R Us catalog page for microscopes and telescopes. There are pink ones (presumably for girls) and black ones (presumably, then, for boys). In each case, the pink ones are less powerful than the black ones. Sigh.

Drop-side cribs recalled; may be banned

Lots of places have discussed the recall of a million drop-side cribs monday, but this one has a photo (of a doll) showing just what the problem is. The hardware holding the side in place at one end breaks, and this lets the bottom move outward at that end. The kid can slide into the gap, get trapped, and suffocate. The article also lists other issues with this and other cribs. Just what a parent of an infant wants to read about with breakfast: more ways to accidentally kill your kid by buying the wrong product.

It seems the Consumer Product Safety Commission has noticed.

Asked on NBC's "Today" show whether people should abandon such cribs, (the commission chair) said she recommends that. And she said consumers also could order plastic kits from the manufacturer to immobilize crib sides.

"The commission will write regulations in the next few months and we will look at this issue about drop-sides," Tenenbaum said. "But I don't think drop-sides will be a part of cribs in the future."