Month: January 2017

With the inauguration of President-Elect Donald Trump looming on January 20, it’s a good time to remember that Fox’s seminal animated sitcom, The Simpsons, has had an impressive track record for predicting future events: In March 2000, the show presented an alternate reality where Trump was in the Oval Office. Take a look at 10 other times Matt Groening’s dysfunctional family peered into their crystal ball—with surprisingly accurate results.

1. THE SIEGFRIED AND ROY TIGER ATTACK

Vegas stage magicians Siegfried and Roy had spent decades performing with their stable of tigers without serious incident. In 1993, The Simpsons used stand-ins Gunter and Ernst—clear parodies of the European duo—to express the writing staff’s doubts that their track record would hold up: One of their tigers attacks them while performing in Mr. Burns’s ill-fated Springfield casino. In 2003, Roy Horn was mauled by a tiger while on stage, severing an artery and leaving him with partial paralysis. Horn maintains the tiger bore him no ill will.

2. THE DON MATTINGLY HAIR SCANDAL

In a 1992 episode featuring Mr. Burns trying to sandbag competing softball teams by hiring professional baseball players, New York Yankee Don Mattingly is seen being kicked off the squad by the nuclear power czar over his long hair. (The animated Mattingly had only neat sideburns.) A month after recording his part, the real Mattingly was fined $250 by the real Yankees for refusing to cut his hair.

3. TWO WORDS: HORSE MEAT

In 1994’s “Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadasssss Song,” Principal Skinner is ousted from his seat after angering the superintendent. Unnoticed by his inspection: the fact that Lunchlady Doris prefers to prepare school lunches using giant tubs of horse parts. In 2013, several food producers in France, Sweden, and the UK were found to have distributed frozen burgers and other products that contained horse meat, an unwelcome additive they did not disclose on package labeling.

4. THEY NAMED THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNER IN ECONOMICS SIX YEARS EARLY

In a fall 2010 episode, Milhouse tries to impress longtime crush Lisa by contributing to a prediction sheet over who would win the Nobel Prize for Economics. His pick: Bengt Holmstrom of MIT. In 2016, Holmstrom was named a joint winner of the prize. (The episode’s recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Krusty the Clown, has yet to be honored by the committee.)

5. THE FIFA CORRUPTION SCANDAL

In a 2014 episode, Homer is petitioned by the head of an unnamed football (a.k.a. soccer) league to help foster a better image after allegations of corruption emerge; he’s quickly carried away in handcuffs. In 2015, FIFA, the world’s leading governing body of soccer, made headlines for a widespread scandal involving the arrest of seven FIFA executives for abusing their positions for financial gain.

6. THE LEMON TREE THIEF

During a 1995 rivalry with the residents of Shelbyville, Bart and his friends are puzzled by the disappearance of a lemon tree from within Springfield’s town limits. In 2013, a woman in Houston was similarly confused by the disappearance of her own lemon tree, which had been excavated from the ground and carted off. The victim, Kae Bruney, told local reporters that the thief was apparently too stupid to realize it was too late in the season to plant elsewhere.

7. A BABY TRANSLATOR

Homer’s down-and-out half-brother, Herb, reversed his fortunes in a 1992 episode when his handheld baby-babble translating device became a sensation. In 2015, an app called the Infant Cries Translator purported to convert your child’s incoherent cries into something resembling speech. The app’s developers claim they analyzed the mewling of 100 newborns to help identify their particular diaper-related needs.

8. A SNAKE MURDER SPREE

In the 1993 episode “Whacking Day,” Lisa Simpson is dismayed to see the town caught up in the annual tradition of hunting and killing overpopulated snakes. In 2013 and 2016, Florida’s Everglades region sanctioned a real whack-a-reptile contest in an attempt to curb the area’s dangerous abundance of invasive Burmese pythons. Organizers used the less-sensational name “Florida Python Challenge.”

9. COOKING GREASE HEISTS

In 2008, The New York Times declared “fryer grease has become gold” for its application as engine fuel after undergoing conversion and detailed a criminal who had siphoned nearly 2500 gallons of the stuff from a Northern California Burger King and other outlets. In 1999, Homer and Bart attempted a similar heist at the grade school’s cafeteria, before being stopped by Groundskeeper Willie.

10. THE THREE-EYED FISH

Tri-eyed fish Blinky was pulled out of the water by Bart in a 1990 episode, a nod to the polluted environment surrounding Springfield’s nuclear power plant. In 2011, fishermen in Argentina caught a three-eyed specimen in a reservoir being fed water from a nearby nuclear power station.

The wife of the president was just that—until a gun-toting geologist named Lou Hoover moved into the East Wing.

In the spring of 1929, the White House was busy preparing for a tea party. This wasn’t some run-of-the-mill White House tea party: It was a top secret shindig, with staffers and the Secret Service under strict orders not to speak of it.

All the fuss was because one of the 15 invitees on the guest list, Jessie DePriest, the wife of Illinois representative Oscar DePriest, was African-American. Not since Theodore Roosevelt had Booker T. Washington over for dinner three decades prior had a black person paid a social visit to the White House. But now, in the height of the Jim Crow era, Lou Hoover, wife of Herbert, was undeterred. She wanted DePriest to come, and her office had drafted and redrafted the guest list to include people who would accept her at the table.

Despite efforts to keep the party under wraps, the press found out, and, sure enough, a furor ensued. Newspapers lambasted the first lady for “defiling” the White House; the state legislatures of Texas, Georgia, and Florida passed resolutions rebuking her. Lou didn’t apologize. Although the reaction bothered her, she refused to acknowledge the controversy publicly. After all, this was nothing compared to the stress she had coolly handled while living in China, where she laughed off death threats during the Boxer Rebellion.

In many ways, Lou Hoover was the first truly modern first lady. She was one of the first first ladies to drive her own car (to the chagrin of the Secret Service), give radio addresses, and create a separate policy agenda for the East Wing. Usually, it’s Eleanor Roosevelt who comes to mind when people think of first ladies who made their own mark. But it was Lou who set an undeniable precedent for Eleanor herself, as well as future first ladies.

Lou was independent from the start. She enrolled at Stanford in 1894 and was the first female to graduate with a degree in geology, becoming one of only a handful of female geologists in the country. It was at Stanford that she met Herbert—at a dinner party where geology professor John Casper Branner (a mentor to both Herbert and Lou) and his wife had played matchmaker and seated the two together. They bonded immediately over a mutual interest—rocks.

An intensely private person, Lou waited until her graduation, three years after Bert’s, to tell anyone she planned to marry him. Even the Branners didn’t know how successful their matchmaking had been: “I thought they were just pals,” Mrs. Branner is quoted as saying in Nancy Beck Young’s Lou Henry Hoover: Activist First Lady. Bert’s proposal arrived via telegram: “Going to China via San Francisco. Will you go with me?” Three months later, he showed up in California. Within two weeks, they were married. Twenty-four hours after that, they were on the S.S. Coptic, headed to the Pacific.

It was nearly impossible for a woman, no matter how qualified, to land a geology job at the time. So while Bert worked as a consulting engineer to the Chinese government for a lucrative $20,000 salary, Lou busied herself learning Chinese. She did, however, sometimes follow Bert underground to inspect the mines, often to the shock of the miners.

By the summer of 1900, the Boxer Rebellion—a grassroots movement aimed at quashing foreign influences—had consumed the country. That June, the Empress Dowager Cixi declared war on all foreigners. But that didn’t bother Lou. She patrolled her garden with a .38 caliber pistol, rode her bike around town until a bullet blew out one of her tires, and calmly played solitaire as shells fell at her front door. As the danger grew, Bert tried to convince Lou to leave. She refused to go until he did too.

That August, the couple left China. A year later they landed in London, where Bert’s company was based, and after a couple of years they began raising two boys. Kids in tow, Lou accompanied Bert to Burma, Egypt, India, Russia, and Australia. Though neither of them had grown up rich, mining was lucrative, and the Hoovers were on their way to becoming millionaires by the end of their twenties. Wealth liberated Lou from housework, allowing her to take advantage of the freedoms available to women of her class: traveling, domestic help, and the luxury of time‚ which she spent collecting rock samples and sending them to Branner. It was during this period that Lou, who would eventually become fluent in five languages, published an award-winning Latin-to-English translation of a 1565 guide to mining and metallurgy.

After World War I began, Lou moved her sons to California and then returned to Europe to help Bert coordinate food and financial aid in neutral Belgium. (She was decorated by King Albert I for her work there.) When the U.S. entered the war, she moved to Washington, D.C. and started a couple of boardinghouses, including one for female employees of the Food Administration, which Bert was now heading. After the war, her husband’s political prospects blossomed—in 1920, his name was floated as a possible presidential candidate, and in 1921, he became Commerce Secretary. When he ran for president seven years later, he snagged 444 electoral votes.

Before moving into the White House, Lou knew she could reinvent the role of first lady. Instead of setting fashion trends like her predecessor, Grace Coolidge, Lou used her husband’s professional standing to do work for the causes she considered most important. She continued to teach women to respond to crises and disasters as she had during World War I and advocated for their right to participate in sporting events such as the Olympics.

Soon Lou was helping address another crisis. Just eight months after Hoover took office, the market crashed. People in need flooded the first lady with a stream of letters. Usually, they pleaded for money or clothes, though one old man simply asked that she send a plant to his wife. (Lou sent two: an ivy and a begonia.)

As the mailbox overflowed, Lou began to organize. She hired a staff to handle the letters and implemented a system. When the problem could be handled by a government agency, Lou’s office forwarded it. Cases dear to her heart were sent to the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, while others were delivered to the offices of the Girl Scouts. (As national president from 1922 to 1925, she helped grow the small club into a thriving organization.) Her office coordinated with more than 40 federal, state, local, and private groups to provide relief. In situations where Lou knew none of the organizations could help, she would forward a letter to a personal friend of hers, asking for help on this one case—and then quietly send whatever money was needed too.

The quasi-governmental organization Lou created was unlike anything a first lady had done before. It acted as an informal clearinghouse, coordinating aid, independent of the president’s office. It helped, but not nearly enough—and neither did the Hoover administration’s policies. After one disastrous term in the White House, Lou and Bert left D.C.—and the Roosevelts moved in. Eleanor Roosevelt picked up where Lou left off. Her early relief efforts mirrored the system Lou had set up.

Before the Hoovers moved out, Eleanor came by the White House for a tour. Lou took her from room to room, pointing out which pieces of furniture would stay. In one of the oval-shaped parlors, Eleanor mentioned she liked the curtains. Lou offered to leave them behind. That’s the kind of woman she was—quietly generous.

America wasn’t as generous with the Hoovers: With the country still in dire financial straits, Americans rushed to disown anything having to do with them. The couple did little to argue their own defense. Lou remained characteristically tight-lipped about her work, even keeping secrets about her charities from her husband. When she died of a heart attack in 1944, Bert found, to his surprise, a stash of checks in her desk—hundreds of them. They were from cash-strapped people she had helped over the years, looking to repay her. Lou had refused to cash them.

If they’re lucky, shoppers at the Tesco supermarket in Coventry, UK may be able to pick up some poetry in addition to their milk and eggs. The Coventry Telegraph reports that a mysterious visitor has left carefully selected poems around the store.

Hunt is on for supermarket Shakespeare behind Tesco poetry https://t.co/mnEYicAZjr #Birmingham pic.twitter.com/eaRTO0cwOq

— Birmingham News (@DailyBRUM) January 2, 2017

Two poems printed on plain paper have been discovered in the grocery store so far. The first, “Bread,” by modern American poet W.S. Merwin, was placed in the baked goods aisle. The opening stanza reads:

Each face in the street is a slice of bread
wandering on
searching

The second poem was “Deer” by another American poet, Kenneth Rexroth:

Deer are gentle and graceful
and they have beautiful eyes.
They hurt no one but themselves
[…]
Men have invented several
Thousand ways of killing them.

That poem was discovered in the meat section on top of some venison.

A verse-loving perpetrator has yet to come forward, but this may not be their first offense. In December 2016, notes telling customers that they “don’t need these chemicals” and to “stop counting calories! YOU LOOK GREAT” were found on boxes of diet products in the same grocery store.

Similar examples of poetry vigilantism have also been reported elsewhere in the UK. In 2015 an optimistic poem titled “Worst Day Ever?” appeared without explanation in a bar in North London, and around the same time someone calling himself “M Jones” or “composer Mark Jones” (coined by others “The Banksy of Poetry“) began sending romantic poems to hairdressers in Wales. Whether these incidents are somehow related or just examples of Britain’s love of poetry remains a mystery.

[h/t Coventry Telegraph]

If you were born in 1992, not only are you as old as the Mall of America, the nicotine patch, and Super Mario Kart, you got to grow up with these words, all dated by first citation to 1992 in the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. VACAY

It was a time when people started going on vacation before the vacation even started by clipping off a whole syllable and saying they were going on vacay.

2. TRUSTAFARIAN

This blend of trust fund and Rastafarian got a first mention in the Washington Times, where it was defined as a “guy who has long hair and a trust fund, drives a Saab or Jeep, listens to reggae, and doesn’t let a whole lot bother him.”

3. PHOTOSHOP (VERB)

The image editing program Photoshop was released in 1990. By 1992, the name had become a verb, to Photoshop.

4. SQUOVAL

This blend of square and oval was formed to name the hot manicure style of 1992, a squared-off oval nail shape.

5. SKEEZY

First there was sleazy, which has been around since 1644. In 1976, we got skeevy, and after we added skeeze in 1989, it was inevitable that we’d come around to skeezy eventually.

6. SADSTER

According to the OED, a sadster is “a pathetic or contemptible person.” According to the Urban Dictionary it’s “an emo dude who is always downbeat, yet more earnest and cooler than you. Basically a hipster sad-sack.”

7. POLYAMORY

This term for “the fact of having simultaneous close emotional relationships with two or more other individuals” first appeared in a 1992 proposal for a new Usenet group on the subject.

8. ON MESSAGE

Politicians and organizations have always come up with plans to get their positions across to the public, but it wasn’t until 25 years ago that they referred directly to those plans with comments about staying on message.

9. METAVERSE

Metaverse, from meta-universe, became a term for virtual worlds after it was introduced by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash.

10. MEH

The word meh was not invented in 1992. It’s a Yiddishism that goes back a long way. But it first shows up in attested written form in a 1992 Usenet post about the TV show Melrose Place with “Meh … far too Ken-doll for me.”

11. INTERNAUT

Just 25 years ago, we needed a special term for a habitual internet user. This blend of internet and astronaut was the answer. Now we don’t need a special word for this, because it’s all of us.

12. GRRRL

This blend of grrr and girl was first applied to the “riot girl” feminist punk movement. By 1992, it was a general term for “a young woman perceived as strong or aggressive, esp. in her attitude to men or in her expression of feminine independence and sexuality.”

13. BIOHACKING

The ethical problem of renegade hobbyists playing around with genes was something worrying enough to warrant the creation of the term biohacking in 1992.

14. FRANKEN-

The new possibilities of genetic manipulation also gave rise to the idea of “Frankenstein food”—food that had been irradiated or genetically modified. In 1992, the Franken- detached and became its own prefix in words like Frankenfood and Frankenfruit.

15. ALTERNA-

Another prefix achieved independence from alternative in 1992. First applied to music styles like alternapop, alterna-rock, and alterna-metal, it also became a way to describe alternadads and alternateens who were into alternathings.

16. FASHIONISTA

The ’90s supermodel years brought the whole fashion industry into the popular imagination, and this term, so much more worldly and evocative than “fashion industry employee,” gained its high-heeled foothold in the vocabulary.

17. DIGERATI

The ’60s gave us the idea of the jet-setting glitterati, and the ’90s gave us the digerati, from digital + literati, for the computing and information technology class.

18. CYBERWAR

The first new word coinages with cyber- (from the 1948 term cybernetic) started in the 1960s, but cyberwar gets its first print citation with a 1992 Chicago Sun-Times article header: “Cyberwar debate: a new generation of ‘brilliant weapons’ has sparked a debate between scientists and the military about who should wage war, man or machine.”

19. BOOTYLICIOUS

The original citation for bootylicious is from a 1992 line rapped by the then-called Snoop Doggy Dogg (“Them rhymes you were kickin were quite bootylicious”) where it had a negative meaning—weak. Later it came to be a positive word for shapely and attractive.

20. BADASSERY

Badass had been around since 1955, but in 1992, it got extended into the abstract noun for the whole general quality of being a badass.

21. ACHY-BREAKY

Billy Ray Cyrus had a hit with his 1992 song “Achy Breaky Heart,” and achy breaky went on to a life of meaning generally sad in a country, twangy, way.

22. EATERTAINMENT

This blend of eat and entertainment was formed to put a simple label on a new ’90s trend of theme restaurants that included entertainment, memorabilia, and gift shops.

23. RESTOBAR

Another blend for a type of bar/nightclub that also serves food, from restaurant + bar plus a hip, European feel.

24. TURNTABLIST

A DJ might spin records, but in 1992, the manipulation of the turntables for effect with scratching, mixing, etc. was elevated to its own type of art from with the word turntablist.

25. URL

The Uniform Resource Locator, a format for specifying a web address, wasn’t yet a standard in 1992, but it was mentioned, and called a URL, in a 1992 electronic mailing list post of minutes from an Internet Engineering Task Force meeting.

Is there any better pairing than Ben & Jerry’s and alcohol? Nearly two years after the beloved ice cream company announced a partnership with New Belgium to make ice cream-themed beer, they’ve returned with another boozy surprise: bourbon-flavored ice cream.

While it’s not exactly official yet, there are some convincing rumors swirling that a flavor called Urban Bourbon will be hitting the shelves soon. Candy Hunting has already released an image of the supposed packaging, and we’re certainly clutching our spoons in anticipation. The new flavor is said to feature some pretty appetizing ingredients: burnt caramel ice cream (yes) with almonds (ohh), fudge flakes (ahh), and bourbon caramel swirls (OK, we’re sold). If you’re not convinced this flavor is the real deal, Thrillist points out that there’s a landing page for Urban Bourbon on Walmart’s website, although it doesn’t lead anywhere—yet.

If so, this would be the latest in a series of bourbon-centric flavors in the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream-verse. Bourbon Pecan Pie has been a longtime favorite, and a new flavor called Bourbon Brown Butter—bourbon brown butter ice cream with dark chocolate whiskey cordial cups and a bourbon brown butter swirl—has debuted at some scoop shops. As far as non-bourbon boozy flavors, there’s the oft-missed flavors White Russian, Dublin Mudslide, and Vermonty Python that all featured liqueurs.

If and when this flavor arrives, we’ll be ready with bowls in hand.

[h/t Thrillist]

Carol Pilon: America’s Last Great Wingwalker. She performs at air shows and teaches younger woman to do aerial stunts.
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Disney executives are scheduling meetings about the fate of Leia Organa. She was to have a big part in Star Wars IX that may or may not be rewritten.
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Hayao Miyazaki’s Path to Studio Ghibli. He was determined to write comic books until he was inspired by a film.
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China’s Decision To Halt The Ivory Trade Is A Game-Changer. With ivory no longer socially acceptable, elephants can keep theirs.
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Car Sensors Are Getting Pretty Darned Advanced. You’re getting a babysitter along with your new vehicle.
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A fed-up fan’s guide to the NFL playoffs. What can they do to get people to watch?
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Delightful Finds From Internet Archive Book Images. Search terms yielded surprising old treasures.  

Americans spend billions of dollars on cough syrup per year. We think we’re paying for the privilege of feeling better—but according to the American Chemical Society’s latest Reactions video, we might be swallowing a lie.

Scan the label of a typical cough medicine, and you’ll likely notice at least one (or more) of the following ingredients: a cough suppressant called dextromethorphan, or DXM; expectorants like guaifenesin, which thin and loosen mucus in the lungs; decongestants like ephedrine; and antihistamines like loratadine.

DXM will probably make you drowsy. But aside from getting a good night’s sleep, multiple systematic reviews (that’s scientist-speak for literature reviews that collect and analyze multiple studies or papers) have found little concrete evidence that these concoctions improve cold symptoms. In fact, clinical trials suggest that cough medicines are just as effective as—get this—a placebo.

If you’re looking to tame the tickle in your throat, you might be better off drinking plenty of fluids, taking a steamy shower, drinking tea with honey, and sucking on a cough drop or hard candy, as they soothe the throat by increasing saliva production. However, if you’re a staunch devotee of over-the-counter medicines, there aren’t any concrete findings stating that cough syrup doesn’t work. Take it if you notice an improvement—but make sure you don’t consume too much of the medicine to amplify its effects, as large doses of DXM can cause dizziness, uncontrollable eye movement, convulsions, and in some extreme cases, even death.

[h/t Lifehacker]

When you really want to destroy an iPhone beyond recognition, molten metal is a foolproof option. YouTubers The Backyard Scientist (a channel obsessed with molten aluminum) and GizmoSlip decided to test out what would happen if an iPhone was dropped in a vat of the super hot stuff. Lucky for us, they documented the entire thing in a video spotted by Nerdist.

The process involves giant bubbles of hot plastic, a few flames, and more. The phone can still be fished out, only it’s more like a black block of bendy tofu than a smartphone. It floats, too, though the slightest poke breaks the submerged gadget into pieces.

While this would be a great way to melt away your technology anguish, it’s probably best not to mess with molten metals at home.

[h/t Nerdist]

Actor/musician Steve Burns has led a truly interesting life: After spending seven years solving blue puppy-related mysteries in a house filled with talking furniture on Blues Clues, he left the hit show to begin building a music career with the help of psychedelic rock band The Flaming Lips. Producer Dave Fridmann and band member Steven Drozd helped Burns create his 2003 debut album, Songs for Dustmites, then re-teamed for his sophomore effort, 2009’s Deep Sea Recovery Efforts. Now Burns and Drozd have formed a musical duo called STEVENSTEVEN and are gearing up to put out their debut LP.

The music clearly has heavy influences from The Flaming Lips, but it also draws from a number of other musicians and characters. Among their extensive list of influences, the duo cites: “Wondering, Burt, Black Sabbath, Cephalopods, Grover, Toy Commercials From The 1970s, Harry Nilsson, Dr. Seuss, Science, Bill Conti, Queen, Futzees, Rocky Balboa, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, True Love, Neil Diamond, The Zoo, Holly Hobbie, Fairy Tales, David Bowie, and Mister Rogers.”

The new album, called FOREVERYWHERE, will drop on February 24 and feature themes ranging from unicorn romance to pooping. The music is meant to be enjoyed by all ages; their music video for “The Unicorn And Princess Rainbow” is filled with rainbows, space, and an all-kid backing band.

The family-friendly musical duo will be trying out some of their songs live February 26 at the Brooklyn Bowl in New York. The all-ages event will kick off in the middle of the day, with doors opening at 11 a.m. and the music starting at 1 p.m.

[h/t Brooklyn Vegan]

Babies’ lives are tough. They can’t communicate their feelings or needs; they don’t understand why anything is happening; and their ability to perceive and interact with the world around them changes by the day. But at least now they’ll be able to eat a food that could benefit their long-term health. New guidelines published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology encourage parents to give their babies small amounts of peanuts, which may help prevent a deadly food allergy later in life.

As anyone with a school-aged child can tell you, food allergies are on the rise. One 2013 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a 50 percent increase in childhood food allergies between 1997 and 2011. Scientists have yet to determine the exact cause of this enormous uptick. Until they do, pediatricians and parents have focused on treating the allergies—and preventing them wherever possible.

That used to mean keeping kids and peanuts apart for as long as possible. But doing so didn’t seem to help. Allergies continued to rise. We needed a new strategy.

If avoidance wasn’t working, experts thought, what about exposure? What we call an allergy is the immune system overreacting to an ordinarily harmless trigger. So to prevent allergies from developing, pediatricians began introducing tiny doses of potential triggers when children were still very young. The tactic worked.

“You have the potential to stop something in its tracks before it develops,” report co-author Matthew Greenhawt, of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, told The New York Times. There’s “a window of time in which the body is more likely to tolerate a food than react to it, and if you can educate the body during that window, you’re at much lower likelihood of developing an allergy to that food.”

Evidence continues to pile up in favor of doing just that. Study after study has confirmed the safety of giving babies very small doses of peanuts, eggs, and other common food allergens, and official recommendations have begun to fall in line.

The latest recommendations, created by a panel at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, emphasize the safety of introducing peanuts early on. Specific guidelines for each baby depend on that child’s allergy risk level. Low- and moderate-risk babies can start eating peanut foods around 6 months of age. High-risk kids should start sooner, under a doctor’s supervision.

Of course, doctors do not recommend giving babies whole peanuts, which they could choke on. Instead, they suggest foods made with peanuts or watered-down peanut butter.

“This won’t outright prevent every single case of peanut allergy,” Greenhawt told the Times, “but the number could be significantly reduced by tens of thousands.”

[h/t New York Times]