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The Fine Brothers have a webseries called Kids React in which they show viral videos to children and usually get told how stupid they are. In this one, they watch Le Internet Medley by the GAG Quartet, which contains many memes the kids are already familiar with. Which is a good thing. -Thanks, Benny & Rafi!
When your kids complain about doing their math homework, let them know that it was always thus, and always shall be. Why, even ancient Sumerian kids had to do math! Here's one math problem that was found inscribed on a clay tablet at Šuruppak, an archaeological dig site in modern-day Iraq:A loose translation of the problem is: A granary. Each man receives 7 sila of grain. How many men? That is, the tablets concern a highly artificial problem and certainly present a mathematical exercise and not an archival document. The tablets give the statement of the problem and its answer (164571 men - expressed in the sexagesimal system S since we are counting men - with 3 sila left over).
My earliest memories of television are scenes from Sesame Street. This nurturing show has engaged children who have grown up, brought more children into the world, and introduced them to the show. There are many reasons why Sesame Street has been so successful -- the clever writing, puppetry, directing -- but perhaps foremost among them is that the show has always been guided by child psychologists who understand how kids think and what they need. Esther Ingils-Arkell has an article at io9 about how they have shaped the show with their professional knowledge: This is why misanthropic Oscar, one of my favorites, was added. He was there to teach kids that people had radically different points of view. Oscar likes trash, worms, and being mean to people. Kids had to learn, and respect, that there were people like that in the world. Oscar, as nearly the only Sesame Street character who could get angry about anything, also served as a guide for children on how to manage negative emotions, both their own and other people's.
In the early 1980s, Will Lee, the man who played a character called Mr. Hooper on the show, died. Show runners consulted a battery of psychologists who specialized in grief counseling, and conducted studies to see if children could understand the concept of death and deal with it without trauma. Only after that did they go on to film the episode. They scheduled it to appear on Thanksgiving. This seems cruel to the kids, until you take into account that that was the day most likely for parents to be home with their kids, at which point it only seems cruel to the parents. The episode was well received, though, and the show hired other actors.
A 13-pound (6 kg) baby boy set a new record for the largest baby born by natural delivery in Germany. The unidentified 528-pound mother had gestational diabetes, but opted for a vaginal delivery at Berlin’s Charité hospital instead of a caesarean section.“She insisted on a vaginal birth despite the very high risk,” said Wolfgang Henrich, the chief doctor at Charité’s obstetrics clinic. “We usually advise mothers carrying a child with an estimated weight of more than 4.5 kilos to opt for a caesarean section to avoid complications.”
The boy will join nine brothers and four sisters – four of which had birth weights of more than five kilograms.
The woman claimed she didn’t know of her diabetes, but doctors believe she was aware and ate too much sweet food.
A normal birth weight is about 3.5 kilos. Babies over four kilos – about one in ten in Germany – are generally considered to be overweight and run higher risks of diabetes and obesity later in life.
