Commercial surrogacy -- that's bearing a child for money -- is illegal in the United Kingdom. That's why many British women are hiring surrogates in India to bear their children:

It is estimated that 2,000 births to surrogate mothers took place in the country last year, with most experts agreeing that Britain is the biggest single source of people who want to become parents in this way. Britain may account for as many as 1,000 births last year in India. In contrast there were 100 surrogate births recorded in Britain last year. [...]

* Doctors who spoke to this newspaper told of British women who have babies through surrogates to avoid being pregnant and childbirth, raising fears of a “wombs to rent” culture;

* Women in India are being paid up to £6,000 to donate eggs and carry babies, something British women are banned from doing;

Link -via Marginal Revolution | Photo: johnny.hunter

Shouryya Ray, a 16-year old from Germany, began learning calculus when he was 6 years old. Now he's solved a ballistic mystery which has puzzled mathematicians since Sir Isaac Newton first posed it:

Shouryya Ray worked out how to calculate exactly the path of a projectile under gravity and subject to air resistance, The (London) Sunday Times reported. [...]

Newton posed the problem, relating to the movement of projectiles through the air, in the 17th century. Mathematicians had only been able to offer partial solutions until now.

If that wasn't enough of an achievement, Ray has also solved a second problem, dealing with the collision of a body with a wall, that was posed in the 19th century.

Both problems Ray resolved are from the field of dynamics and his solutions are expected to contribute to greater precision in areas such as ballistics.

Link -via Alphecca | Photo: Calcutta Telegraph

Andrew Liszewski of Gizmodo writes, "There needs to be an adult version of this transforming seesaw bench." I couldn't agree more. Some people like standing desks or walking desks. I want a desk mounted on a seesaw.

Oh, yeah, and my kids would love this, too. But one of the little joys of being a parent is getting to play with toys again without people giving you odd looks.

Link (Google Translate) -via Gizmodo | Designer's Website

YouTube Link

Oh, how everyone loves to see little girls dressed up in tutus and performing at their first dance recital. Wait! That can be part of the performance.

Check out the super adorable video of Freya's First Recital. The unchoreographed fight between two sassy toddlers stole the show. Don't worry the fight was broken up just in time. They even completed the performance. After all, the show must go on.

Omsk was a fortified border town from the beginning of its history. The passage of time has not altered that character. Even the playgrounds are heavily defended, in this case by a T-34-85. Government officials discarded old Soviet tanks, welded them shut, then left them in the playground as the greatest possible toys that young boys could hope for. View more pictures at the link.

Link (Google Translate) -via io9

Anthony Smith, a 4-year old boy in Salem, New Hampshire, needs to wear his "blue ear" -- his hearing aid. But he stubbornly refused to do so because superheroes don't have hearing aids. So his grandmother, Lou D'Allesandro, emailed Marvel Comics and asked for help.

First, Marvel employees dug through their archives and found a 1984 cover of West Coast Avengers that shows a hearing impaired superhero wearing a hearing aid. Later, they created the above cover image to fit Anthony's needs precisely:

Then another email arrived from Marvel, this one with Anthony as his own superhero, Blue Ear, drawn by Nelson Ribeiro of Marvel.

"Thanks to my listening device, I hear someone in trouble," Blue Ear says.

Then in comic book letters, it says, "When DANGER makes a sound, the Blue Ear answers the call."

No surprise, that went over big - with everyone. [...]

"It's just so captivated Anthony and his little buddies," Christina said. The only downside is that Anthony and his friends want their hearing devices to look like Blue Ear's.

Link -via Fashionably Geek

(YouTube link)

Five-year-old Jack made a video to impress his idol, champion trial rider Danny MacAskill (whom you can see here). He impressed me! -via Metafilter

Italian doctors implanted an artificial heart that weighed only 11 grams, making it the smallest ever used. It kept the child alive long enough to receive a human heart:

"In March, the smallest artificial heart in the world was implanted at the Bambino Gesu Hospital in Rome," Antonio Amodeo, a senior hospital official, said in a statement.

"The device, a titanium pump weighing only 11 grams and that can endure a flow of up to 1.5 litres per minute, was used in an emergency case of a 16-month-old infant suffering from dilated myocardiopathy with a serious infection of the ventricular assistance device that had been implanted previously."

Link -via Gizmodo

Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user o5com

He's only 15 years old, but he may soon save thousands of lives. Jack Andraka of Crownsville, Maryland won first place at this year's Intel Science Talent Search. He did so by devising a simple dipstick test that can detect pancreatic cancer cheaper and better than any other currently in use:

Jack created a simple dip-stick sensor to test blood or urine to determine whether or not a patient has early-stage pancreatic cancer. His study resulted in over 90 percent accuracy and showed his patent-pending sensor to be 28 times faster, 28 times less expensive and over 100 times more sensitive than current tests.

News Story and Press Release -via The Agitator

Photo: Intel

Is that....?

Yes. Yes, it is. Mam Amor makes cloth dolls that are anatomically correct in their depictions of childbirth and breastfeeding. The baby doll fits entirely inside the mother doll and is attached by an umbilical cord.

http://www.mamamordolls.com/index2.php (warning: auto sound) -via VA Viper

(Video Link)

Every day, Dylan has to get breathing treatments for his cystic fibrosis. But he doesn't let that get him down. Here is Dylan kicking it to Taio Cruz's "Dynamite."

-via Gizmodo

You can't just throw a pillow fort together. I know because I build at least one per day. I've got limited materials of dubious structural integrity and high demands for enclosed interior space. My clients are quite insistent about what they want, and I've got to keep them happy to remain employed.

This one, designed by Patrick Di Justo, uses Buckminister Fuller's principle of tensional integrity to create a lightweight but sturdy structure. It's built around brooms that push each other apart, but never touch each other.

Link | Image: Joel Kimmel

Photographer Jason Lee is just like any other proud papa -he wants to capture his girl's childhood in photos. Unlike most dads though, he's not just content with a few snapshots (although his site has plenty of those too). Instead, Lee manipulates photos of his daughters into amazing geek scenes that any teen girl would be proud to show her boyfriends.

While I love the photos he took of his girls, I can't help but wish he offered his services to everyone, because who wouldn't want family photos this cool?

Link Via io9

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mommies, Grandmas, and Mother figures out there. May your day be filled with laughter, fun, and lots and lots of homemade cards and goodies.

 

 

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mommies, Grandmas, and Mother figures out there. May your day be filled with laughter, fun, and lots and lots of homemade cards and goodies.