Safety Matters for your child...

• Is it suited to your child’s developmental level? Most toys bear a “recommended age” sticker, which should be taken as a starting point in the selection process. Be realistic about your child’s abilities and level of maturity when choosing an age-appropriate toy. Toys that have projectiles, for example, are never suitable for a child under age 4 — and even some 6-year-olds aren’t mature enough to handle them. Likewise, if your 3-year old still puts everything into his mouth, continue to steer clear of toys and games with small parts and pieces.

• Think big. Until your child turns 3, toy parts should be bigger than his mouth to avoid the possibility of choking. To determine whether a toy poses a choking risk, try fitting it through a toilet paper roll. If a toy or part of a toy can fit inside the cylinder, it’s not safe.

• Is the toy too heavy? Could your baby be harmed if it fell on him? If so, pass.

• Look for toys that are well put together. Make sure tails are securely sewn, seams of stuffed animals are reinforced, and paint is not peeling. Stuffed animals should also be free of buttons, yarn, ribbons, and anything else your child could yank off and put in his mouth.

• Is your child physically ready for this toy? For example, parents of older kids may buy a bike one size too big so as not to have to buy a new bike the next year. This tactic can lead to serious injury if a child doesn’t have the physical skills to control the bigger bike.

• Is the toy in good condition? Used toys passed down from older relatives or siblings or bought at yard sales can be worn or frayed, which can be sometimes pose a danger. Examine all new or used toys for buttons, batteries, ribbons, eyes, beads, and plastic appendages that could easily be chewed or snapped off.

• Does the toy have a string or cord longer than 12 inches? A cord can too easily be wrapped around a young child’s neck, causing strangulation. Once your child can climb up on his hands and knees, remove crib gyms and hanging mobiles from his crib. Be particularly vigilant about older toys. For example, an older model of a popular play kitchen may have a phone attached with a potentially deadly cord, while the latest model of the same kitchen has the more current and safer cordless phone.

• Does the toy use small magnets? In 2007, the CPSC named magnets the #1 hidden home hazard. Small, powerful magnets are often used in toys, and may fall out of the toy and be swallowed by a child. Two or more swallowed magnets (or a magnet and a metal object) can be attracted to each other through intestinal walls, causing twisting and pinching of the intestines, holes, blockages, infection, and worse if not discovered and treated promptly. As of August 2007, one death and 86 injuries from magnets had been reported to the CPSC, and 8 million magnetic toys had been recalled. The agency recommends keeping toys with magnets away from kids under 6 years old.

Nicest Things about plants....

1. Plants have in their structure xylem tubes that transport water and mineral salts and phloem tubes that carry the food. Both types of tubes are produced by a meristematic tissue called cambium. Xylem is produced inward, phloem outward. Death xylem layers form the wood.

2. The green pigment called chlorophyll allows the photosynthesis through which plants synthesize sugars coming from water and carbon dioxide. Even brown or red leaves contain chlorophyll. Only parasite plants, like dodders and fungi lack chlorophyll. Sugars stock sun energy. In greenhouses, artificial light and supplementary carbon dioxide boost photosynthesis. But plants also need nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, calcium and potassium, plus minor amounts of other elements, for synthesizing all the necessary organic chemicals. Most plants store energy as starch.

3. Plants breathe all the time, breaking down the sugars for getting energy. Plants also sweat, mainly through their leaves. Water goes out through small pores called stoma. This creates an absorption force transmitted to the roots. In wet environments, plants sweat less, but in dry, windy areas, the water loss is high. Plants adapted to dry and hot weather lack leaves (cacti) or have special changes in their leaves that impede water loss, like thick cuticles and less stoma whose opening can be controlled.

4. Plants growing in the shadow have larger leaves; plants can also direct their leaves towards the light source, a phenomenon called phototropism. Because plants lack a nervous system, plants’ reactions are controlled by hormones. Gibberellins are involved in stimulating plants’ growth, while abscisic acid inhibits the plant growth, causing the leaves and mature fruits to fall.

Geotropism is the plant’s reaction to gravitation: their roots always grow downward. Chemotropism is the plant’s reaction to chemicals, like auxins, hormones that control plants’ development and the growth rate of various parts. Auxins are concentrated in roots and shoots. Too much auxin inhibits the growth. If a plant is placed horizontally, auxins accumulate in the lower part, causing the curbed vertical growth of the plant.

Auxins are more concentrated in the shadowed part of the plant; this way they stimulate those cells to grow more rapidly, turning the shoot towards the light. This is a method through which a hormone creates movement. Auxins are involved also in the opening of the flowers, being influenced by light and temperature. Heat makes the petals grow faster causing the opening of the blossoms while the cold can revert this process.

In vines, the growth hormones concentrate into the opposite side to the support, fact that causes the curly growth around the support. As auxins control the shoots’ development, they generate the bushy (or not) aspect of a plant. When shoots are cut or destroyed, the auxins levels decrease, turning on “sleeping” buds that produce new shoots.

5. Plants growing in the tropical areas experience relatively short daylight all round the year, while those from higher latitudes experience very long daylight during the vegetation time in the summer. That’s why tropical plants cultivated in temperate areas, like Dahlia brought from Mexico, will flower during the shorter autumn days.

6. Today, there are about 400,000 species of plants. First plants going out of the water (mosses and ferns) are still connected to wet environments, due to physiological and reproductive reasons. First flowered plants (gymnosperms) depended on wind for pollination and seed dispersal. Angiosperms (fruit plants) evolved with the pollinating insects.

7. The oldest known “plants” are 3.1 billion years old blue-green “algae” (a type of photosynthetic bacteria). These plants still form scums on lawns or forest trails and are the first organisms to have made photosynthesis. Bacteria can divide in 20-30 minutes, and a sole cell can produce hundreds of millions of bacteria in 10 hours. Most bacteria have about 0.00001 mm in length.

8. About 1.5 billion years ago, the first real unicellular algae appeared. They still make most of the phytoplankton. Euglena, a unicellular alga, can also feed the way animals do. Today, unicellular algae grow from the oceans to lakes and wet places (like shadowed walls). 590 million years ago, there were over 900 species of large pluricellular algae (“sea weeds”). Likens are symbioses between an alga and a fungus. They are so resistant, that they can live at 5,600 (19,000 ft) in Himalaya and are the first pioneers of barren rocks or colonize tree trunks or bones. Some likens are used for achieving turnsole, a chemical indicator that turns red in acid solutions and blue in alkaline solutions.