Good to Know

Vintage baby names are making a comeback.

Old-school choices like Hazel, Leo and Stella are back in the Top 50 after decades of decline, according to the Social Security Administration’s latest data.

The most charming small town in America is in Massachusetts, according to Big 7 Travel.

Stockbridge in the Berkshires ranked No. 1 on the travel website’s list of 50 most charming small towns in America, released last month.

A small start-up recently announced it has grown two key components of breastmilk in a lab.

Biomilq managed to grow human mammary cells that make a protein called casein and a sugar called lactose. This is the first step, the company hopes, to making human milk outside the human body.

Too much TikTok? New feature lets parents set how much time kids can spend on the app Parents concerned with their children’s TikTok obsession can perk up with the app’s new feature that lets them have more control over how many videos is too many.

The company announced the Family Safety Mode, which allows parents and guardians to link their TikTok account to their teens'. Once they’re connected, parents have the option to control how long their teen can spend on TikTok each day under the Screen Time Management feature. Guardians have the option to limit who can send messages to the connected account or turn off direct messaging completely, as well as restrict the appearance of content that may not be appropriate for all audiences.

“We want people to have fun on TikTok, but it's also important for our community to look after their wellbeing which means having a healthy relationship with online apps and services,” reads a TikTok blog post by Cormac Keenan, Head of Trust and Safety, EMEA. For now, these features are available only in the U.K., but will begin to roll out to additional markets in the coming weeks, according to the blog post.

TikTok is aware of the growing concern over the

amount of time teens are spending on the platform. The short-form videosharing app partnered with several of its top creators to promote time offline. The app also launched an educational video series called “You’re In Control,” aimed at educating younger generations about TikTok’s safety guidelines. -Coral Murphy, USA TODAY

Study finds body temperatures are decreasing... what does that mean?

Stanford University researchers recently debunked the common knowledge that 98.6 degrees is the average body temperature.

The notion dates back to the mid-19th century, established by German physician Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich in 1851. A recent British study found the average temperature of 25,000 patients to be 97.9 degrees. Figuring out the true cause of temperature change is very challenging, said Dr. Julie Parsonnet, senior author of the study and professor of medicine and of health research and policy, Stanford University. For the study, which was published in the journal eLife, Parsonnet and her colleagues analyzed three sets of temperatures from three distinct historical periods: between 1862 and 1930, 1971 to 1975 and 2007 to 2017.

On average males born in the 2000s have a body temp 1.06 degrees lower than that of men born in the early 1800s. For women that number is on average 0.58 degrees lower. That’s a decrease in body temperature of 0.05 degrees every decade.

One of the things researchers looked at is whether thermometers are just more precise now. In the mid1800s the science of thermometers was pretty new; today’s are much more accurate, Parsonnet said. By examining each data set researchers ruled error out. Analyzed separately, each set showed a pattern of declining temperatures over time.

What exactly is causing the decrease in body temp is unknown.

“I could list thousands of correlations but none of those prove causation,” Parsonnet said.

One reason our temperatures may be decreasing is because we’re healthier.

“In the 19th century when the 98.6 value was established, many people lived with chronic diseases. Life expectancy was less than [age] 40. A significant percentage of the population would have had diseases that are rare today in their chronic forms like tuberculosis, syphilis and rheumatic heart disease. They also would have had recurrent bouts

of diarrhea, skin infections, chronic non-healing wounds and all those vaccine-preventable diseases that we don’t see” in modern times, Parsonnet said.

Additionally, because they had little heating and no air conditioning, people’s bodies had to consume more calories to stay at a good temperature.

“So it should be surprising that their temperature, which is a measure of how hard the body has to work to keep the body functions going, might be revved up,” Parsonnet said. The main significance of the finding is that body temperature is changing over time, she said. “We all have heard about 98.6 since our mothers told us, ‘You’re not sick. Your temperature is 98.5. You need to go to school.’ So everyone is saying in their heads, ‘I told you I was sick, mom!,’” Parsonnet said. “But I do want to say that the significance of our finding is not that temperature is lower than 98.6. People paying attention have known that 98.6 is too high for decades.”

Credit Dr. Philip Mackowiak at the University of Maryland, who brought the issue to light in 1997 with a study published in JAMA, Parsonnet said. It’s better to think about temperature as fluctuating. “Personally, I think people are way too fixated on body temperature as a marker of illness,” Parsonnet said. “Yes, it can be quite useful when it is at the extremes. A temperature of 103 or 104 is definitely a cause for alarm and should result in a medical assessment.”

A little movement is OK. “If you feel sick and your temperature is only 98.6 or even 97.8, it doesn’t make you not sick. It’s the big picture, not the number that matters,” she said. Remember that people can transmit infections even when they are feeling well, either because they don’t have symptoms or they have a mild illness.

“We should be rethinking the rules about staying home from school or work. Shouldn’t we care more about how people feel and whether they are coughing or sneezing, than that specific number?” she said. -Melissa Erikson

Boston Children’s Museum offers free play and learning resources to use at home

Boston Children’s Museum is offering free online resources for parents and caregivers to use at home during this time of social distancing. These resources address needs of families with younger children as well as those interested in homeschooling and includes both play and learning content.

The resources include the award-winning "Beyond the Chalkboard" website; the STEM Sprouts Teaching Guide, which offers ideas and activities for early childhood educators who teach science, technology, engineering and math; guides for afterschool educators working with English Language Learners and children with autism; and BCM Home Edition – a book of 26 activities that families can try together at home. Each of these resources is available for free to any parent, teacher or other caregiver that wishes to use them.

Beyond the Chalkboard is the work of a host of staff from Boston Children’s Museum, with additional contributions from educators from several organizations, as well as invaluable input from teachers in afterschool programs across Massachusetts. The website includes diverse subject area content ranging from math and science activities to literacy and art.

In addition to learning resources, the Museum’s 100 Ways to Play will inspire creativity and fun at home. The list includes ideas from cooking to making, games, and instructions for learning things such as origami. The Museum’s social media pages will also be posting ideas, activities, and videos that can help families during this time when schools and childcare facilities are closed. You can find all the free learning resources at bostonchildrensmuseum.org.

Other educational websites to check out:

Switcheroo Zoo: This site helps kids learn about animals by watching, listening and playing games. Find it: https://switchzoo. com

Nat Geo for Kids: Kids can learn about geography and animals. Find it: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/

Into the Book: Kids can practice learning strategies through playing games. Find it: https://reading.ecb.org/

Suessville: Kids get to hang out with Dr. Suess and all his friends, while playing games and reading. Find it: https://www. seussville.com/

Fun Brain: Gives kids practice with math and reading skills. Find it: https://www.funbrain.com/

Protecting our children from harm

The spread of the global pandemic to our shores has confronted us once again with the need as parents to help our children understand and deal with a looming threat, one that impacts on all our lives. In this instance, the unseen threat may impose restrictions on children’s activities and be difficult for them to accept.

Almost from the moment of conception we try to protect our children from harm. During pregnancy we are careful about what we eat and drink. We give much thought to what and how we should feed our babies. We read books and manuals about physical and emotional development, all with the goal BY DR. ELAINE HEFFNER of providing the best for our children and avoiding anything that might be harmful.

As soon as children are beyond our physical care, we give thought to how far to let them expand their boundaries while still keeping them safe. From letting them walk down the street without holding our hand, to climbing on the jungle gym, to going to school alone, and on through all the stages of growing independence we measure how much is safe, how much is not. The challenge is always to balance their striving and need for independence with our responsibility to keep them safe. Upsetting to us as parents is the realization that we are unable to protect our children from many things in life.

It is a human reaction to

look for explanations of things we are unable to explain, as if finding a reason will make the irrational rational, almost as if understanding it will enable us retroactively to stop it from happening. In regard to the current crisis, children’s wish for explanations may be somewhat less challenging in that illness and its restrictions have probably already been part of their life experience. This unseen threat may seem less worrisome than the threat of gun violence that

has already disturbed the school lives of many children.

In this instance, the lives of both parents and children have been disrupted leading to frustration as well as worry, and to push back from children to the restrictions they encounter. For parents, the need to deal with children whose activities have been restricted makes for added stress.

Our own emotional reactions to the threat of illness as well as the stress of the preventive measures needed, can interfere with our ability to hear the concerns of our children. The recognition of our own inability to protect our children from life’s events can be overwhelming. We know there are things from which we can’t protect them, just as we also know that we cannot reassure them that this could never happen to them. This is painful to experience as a parent. If we are aware of the

feelings aroused in us by these limitations, we can put them aside and listen instead for our children’s feelings and concerns. Often, they are different from our own. The way children react to an event like this is connected to where they are both in age and developmental stage. School age children are likely to have encountered restrictions set by a larger world, whereas young children may attribute limits not to their liking to their parents. Such concerns are often not expressed directly so we have to listen for them at other times. But more generally in terms of how we talk to our children, our awareness of our own feelings and limitations can help us strike that difficult to achieve balance between unrealistic reassurance and unrealistic alarm.

The reassurance for us is our children’s resilience, both physically and emotionally.