Brain buckets

Surviving in style: Most moms have fought the battle to get their kids to wear helmets when riding bikes, skateboards and such, but new helmet designs with shark fins, critter ears and dinosaur horns should end the arguments.

But why stop with the kids? More than a few adults have to be coerced into making safe choices, which is why we’ve applied for patents for a seat-belt with USB ports, a life-preserver with cup holders for your beer, and, for those using power tools, safety goggles that look like chick-magnet Ray-Ban sunglasses.

—

I’m gonna chow down my vegetables: Veggies are no longer the bit player they were in the meat-and-potato days of the American diet. Meat consumption is down, and vegetables are more often main course than garnish.

If the meat-eaters in the family still balk at eating veggies, you can try the old “Open up the hangar doors; here come’s the airplane” trick. And your 38-year-old can leave his dinosaur bike helmet on at the table.

—

Don’t know much about history: On this day in 1956, the United States exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

The swimwear world still considers itself fortunate the test wasn’t made above Scratchy Bottom in Dorset, England.

—