Books, Coffee, and Babies: seven quick takes

1. How crazy and cool is this? Scientists discover children's cells living in mothers' brains.

Chimerism is when two lines of genetically distinct cells coexist in a single being (the most common example in humans is after organ transplantation). This article talks about an example of microchimerism, which is where one organism contains only a very small amount of genetically distinct cells. They don't really know the medical implications yet, but I think the philosophical/theological implications are just as interesting when you put it this way: the children you carry are literally part of your body for the rest of your life-- whether they are carried to term or not. (Of course, the article doesn't specify exactly at what point in the pregnancy the cell transfer happens, if they even know. It would clearly have to be after implantation, and probably after the placenta is a bit more well-developed, which happens over the course of the first 5-8 weeks or so.)

2. Why you should never, ever put two spaces after a period. My self-professed inner grammar-geek is horrified that I've been typing incorrectly for the past 18 years. I blame my 6th-grade typing teacher. MRS. BESCHTA, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME? (And yes, I keep typing two spaces by accident and then going back and deleting one of them. It's very time consuming.)

3. Speaking of grammar, here's an article on a personal pet peeve of mine: Woah! Why are you spelling it that way?

(Hint: it's "whoa.")

4. The Real Reason Pediatricians Want You to Vaccinate Your Kids. Here are a couple of quotes from the article that give the gist (though I highly recommend reading the whole thing):

"I often wonder why a parent who believes vaccines are harmful would want to bring their children to a medical doctor at all. After all, for immunizations to be as malign as their detractors claim, my colleagues and I would have to be staggeringly incompetent, negligent or malicious to keep administering them."

"What breaks the deal is that I would never truly believe that these parents trust me. Giving kids vaccines is the absolute, unambiguous standard of care, as easy an answer as I will ever be able to offer. If they don't trust me about that, how can I hope they would if the questions ever got harder?"