Doctor Who Projection Watch - $19.95
Attention Doctor Who fans! Behold the Doctor Who Projection Watch from the NeatoShop! This fabulous time piece has the ability to project the image of the 11th Doctor.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Doctor Who items.
"We submitted his entry because we felt his penmanship was amazing considering he completes most of his work without using his prostheses," said Cheryl Hasenfus, Readfield Elementary School principal.
At those times, Nicholas writes by holding a pen or pencil between his upper arms.
On behalf of Zaner-Bloser, a publisher of educational materials, Hasenfus presented a trophy to Nicholas during a school assembly for his excellent penmanship. The school is in Readfield, Maine.
Inspired by his ability, Zaner-Bloser decided to create a new award category in his honor: Nicholas Maxim Special Award for Excellent Penmanship
(YouTube link)
"This guy is crazy!" ...crazy like a fox. This is apparently a vending machine at a petting zoo from which people can buy treats to feed the animals. But Billy here has figured out how to "tap" into it himself! -via Buzzfeed
Update: purple_phoenix, who works there, tells us this is not a billy goat, but a female sheep! That'll teach me to go by YouTube titles.
What looks like a Stretch Batmobile, goes really fast, and runs on electric motor? The Dutch Superbus, the brainchild of Wubbo Ockels, who created the car for public transportation (that or a really, really expensive ride to prom).
AOL's Translogic blog has the video clip: Link (Photo: Radio Netherlands Worldwide)
The next time you get an Indian talking from a call center on your customer service call, don't get too upset. Instead, have pity as your counterpart may soon be talking from jail!
For a man serving a life sentence for murder, Pradeep Deburma has a slightly unlikely dream: to work in a call centre like hundreds of thousands of other young ambitious Indians. Even more improbably, he has every chance of realising it while still behind bars.
Deburma, 24, is detained in a high-security prison near Hyderabad which is launching an innovative scheme to turn convicts into "outsourcing providers" for local firms and eventually, it is hoped, international clients.
The scheme is in its early stages, with prisoners being trained in basic data entry skills. Jail authorities hope that inmates will soon be just as likely to tap at a keyboard as dig vegetables, make carpets or stitch uniforms.
"We have got so many computer literates and professionals in our prison," said Gopinath Reddy, director general of prisons in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
Talk about being chained to the desk! Jason Burke of The Guardian has more: Link (Photo: Jason Burke)
Love cats but have cat allergy? Well, hang in there - scientists are closing in on a cat allergy vaccine that will let you have your cat fix without the sniffles:
A mix of seven synthetic peptides makes up the vaccine. The idea, the researchers wrote, is that the immune system will encounter these peptide strands, which fit into the immune cells like a key to a lock, and recognize them as harmless. That action stops the sniffling, sneezing inflammatory response in its tracks, even when the peptides are attached to real cat proteins.
An early clinical trial on 88 patients resulted in no serious side effects, the researchers reported. A single injection reduced the skin's inflammatory reaction to cat allergens by 40 percent, the researchers wrote.
Remember our post from way back when about the cost of raising a child totaling about $250K? Well, economist Bryan Caplan decided to take a closer look as to exactly why (and how we can lower that cost). The Week summarizes:
So... we're spending too much on kids?
"In a nutshell," says Sierra Black at Strollerderby, "Caplan believes that parents are 'overcharging' themselves for their children." By committing to intense tactics like attachment parenting, which requires moms to carry newborns non-stop and respond to their every desire, they're unnecessarily robbing themselves of time. Parents also feel obligated to spend a fortune on lessons of every kind, and an endless stream of educational videos and toys.And all that expensive attention is really unnecessary?
Yes. Caplan says the bottom line is that nature — the kids' genes — mostly determines who they'll be; the power of nurture, he says, is minimal. Research on twins and adopted children shows that kids raised by highly educated parents with big vocabularies, for example, tend to know more words when they're tiny. But by the time they reach age 12, "the effect of enriched upbringing on vocabulary was barely visible," Caplan says in The New York Times.
Link (Photo: Caitlin Caplan)
The recycled bicycle parts become a representation of the dismissed, invisible, and powerless, but also an affirmation of self-propelled movement. The bicycle chandelier thereby creates a new third meaning of reclaimed agency.
Love coffee? No, I mean, do you love coffee? If you're a coffee addict, then take heart - it's not your fault: A new research shows that how much you crave caffeine largely depends on your genes.
New research suggests that individuals who carry a so-called "high-consumption" variation of either gene appear to drink more coffee, relative to those who carry a "low-consumption" variant.
"It's really an incredible story," said study co-author Dr. Neil Caporaso, branch chief of genetic epidemiology at the National Cancer Institute. "People don't really suspect it, but genetics plays a big role in a lot of behaviors, such as smoking and alcohol consumption. And now it turns out that it has a part in how much caffeine we drink."
Construction Plate - $14.95 and Construction Utensil Set - $19.95
Got a fussy eater? Make mealtime fun with the Construction Plate and Utensil Set from the NeatoShop.
The plate, which comes complete with ramps and breaks to separate food into groupings, looks like a construction zone. It is specially designed to work with a set of Front Loader Spoon, Fork Lift Fork, and Bulldozer Pusher (to make it easy to gather food and load it onto the fork and spoon).
Your tot will love dinnertime now! Links: Construction Plate and Construction Utensil Set (sold separately) | More Mealtime Fun
Want to live a long life? A study of 1,500 children born in 1910 revealed the secret of a long life: conscientious habits.
"Most people who live to an old age do so not because they have beaten cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or lung disease; rather, the long-lived have mostly avoided serious ailments altogether," according to Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin, in their recent book, "The Longevity Project."
"The best childhood personality predictor of longevity was conscientiousness--the qualities of a prudent, persistent, well organized person," according to the two professors (he at the University of California--Riverside, and she at La Sierra University). "Conscientiousness . . . also turned out to be the best personality predictor of long life when measured in adulthood."
Link | The Longevity Project at Amazon
Wyoming-based photographer Tristan Greszko created this epic tilt-shift video of a Jackson Hole ski resort. As you watch the clip, keep in mind that those Lilliputian specks are actually real skiers ...
