It's easy to see how having a helicopter parent could harm a child's emotional growth, but a new research shows that the effect isn't the same for boys and girls.

Professor of psychology Chrystyna Kouros at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, measured the impact of helicopter parenting and fostering independence (or autonomy support) and discovered that the two have different effects on the sexes.

It turns out that helicopter parenting harms girls more than boys, and the lack of fostering independence has the opposite effect:

“Just because mom and dad aren’t helicopter parents, doesn’t necessarily mean they are supporting their young adult in making his or her own choices,” Kouros said. “The parent may be uninvolved, so we also wanted to know if parents are actually encouraging their student to be independent and make their own choices.”

The researchers found that young women are negatively affected by helicopter parenting, while young men suffer when parents don’t encourage independence.

“The sex difference was surprising,” said Kouros, an expert in adolescent depression. “In Western culture in particular, boys are socialized more to be independent, assertive and take charge, while girls are more socialized toward relationships, caring for others, and being expressive and compliant. Our findings showed that a lack of autonomy support — failure to encourage independence — was more problematic for males, but didn’t affect the well-being of females. Conversely, helicopter parenting — parents who are overinvolved — proved problematic for girls, but not boys.”

Read the full story over at SMU Research News - Thanks Margaret Allen! (image: LOVE (is in the air) by Shamus Beyale)

Image: jeep2003

Spring is here and the grass will need to be mowed soon. But if you have this sweet DIY retro mini lawnmower that looks like a vintage automobile, the job will surely be a satisfying one.

Jeep2003 chronicled his "Mini Push Mower" build project over at Old Mini Bikes (which itself is a fascinating community of people who ride and build mini motorcycles). The mower uses a two-stroke engine from an old snowblower and the deck comes from an old smoker grill. The tail lights are fantastic!

Check out the entire build over at Old Mini Bikes - via Daily Dot & Pee-Wee Herman's My Log

Weather getting warmer? What better way to get ready for T-shirt time than with some awesome NeatoShop T-shirts? We're having a neat sale this week: get up to 20% off all T-shirts on the NeatoShop!

Because we love you, let's make this Sale extra fun with a T-shirt giveaway. Here's how to enter:

1. Visit the NeatoShop and take a look around to find your favorite design. May we suggest the Science T-Shirts, Funny T-shirts, and Video Game T-Shirts categories?

2. In the comment below, tell us your favorite artwork and the artist who designed it.

3. That's it! There's no step 3.

One entry per person. Multiple entries will be disqualified. We'll pick three winners at random. The winners will be notified through our comment system below, so be sure to use a valid email address. (Did you win our previous giveaway but didn't claim the prize? Be sure to white list @neatorama.com so you won't miss the notification email) Good luck, everyone!

Edit 4/19/17 - We've picked the winners using the random number algo over at random dot org. Congratulations to Kyle C.A., kantoboy, and Luis P!

Image: Brian Thompson

The Loch Ness monster, Big Foot, McPizza ...

Intrepid searchers have looked for a long time for these mythical things, and thanks to a podcaster named Brian Thompson, we now have proof of the existence of the elusive McDonald's Pizza:

Like many worthwhile quests, Thompson’s started as a late-night joke. “[The demise of McDonald’s pizza] is something I’ve always had in the back of my mind,” he says. “Every few years it would pop up and I would think about it.” One night, discussing the recent wave of true-crime podcasts, he decided it might make a good topic for a satirical investigation. So he opened his laptop, plugged in a microphone, and dialed up his local McDonald’s. The resulting, fruitless calls became Episode 1.

Thirty-four unlikely episodes later, Thompson has chased his titular question through complicated corporate dial-up menus, across gulfs of conflicting information, and finally all the way to Pomeroy, Ohio, one of only two locations in the United States that still has a pizza oven fired up. (The other is in West Virginia.)

Read the rest of the story over at Atlas Obscura.

Image: @Akiyoshi Kitaoka

We've featured Akiyoshi Kitaoka's optical illusions before on Neatorama (like this predecessor to today's image), but the Japanese psychology professor has a neat new one.

In this image above, Kitaoka noted "The right eye appears to be light blue and the left eye to be yellow, though they are the same gray."

Don't believe it?

Here are the eyes up close:

Let's compare them side-by-side (Enhance!!)

Pretty freaky, huh?

Photo: Cassie Clayshutle Photography

We posted about newborn baby Romeo meeting baby Juliet at the hospital recently, but we just can't pass on this follow up.

The two star-crossed babies were born only hours apart at the same hospital just next door to each other, and their respective parents had named them "Romeo" and "Juliet" by coincidence. After her initial newborn baby photo went viral, photographer Cassie Clayshutle did another photoshoot, this time with homemade props with Shakespearean motifs.

"What light through yonder window breaks?" That's just the photographer's flash.

Thanks Tiffany!

The cuteness, it burns! This YouTube clip is only 20 seconds long, but that's enough to convince us just how cute Cincinnati Zoo's baby hippo Fiona is when she's dreaming. The hippo, born prematurely 9 weeks ago, is probably dreaming about something yummy to eat seeing how she licks her chops like that!

Take a look:

Then head on to the Cincinnati Zoo's Fiona page for more cuteness. Oh, okay, one more video:*/p

Ah, pregnancy - that wondrous time of a mother-to-be's life, so full of excitement, anxiety, and questions. So many, many questions.

But thanks to this handy dandy Pregnancy Q&A, spotted by YellowWoodenTable, a pregnant woman needs to wonder no more about her pregnancy:

Q: Should I have a baby after 35?
A: No, 35 children is enough.

Q: I'm two months pregnant now. When will my baby move?
A: With any luck, right after he finishes college.

Q: What is the most reliable method to determine baby's sex?
A: Childbirth.

Image: @QldFES

Technically, it's a cyclone ... but why quibble?

WIN News TV journalist Philip Calder was out reporting in Ayr, a coastal town in the state of Queensland, Australia, that got hit by Cyclone Debbie last week, when he ran into a bull shark stranded in the middle of a road. “He must’ve gotten caught in a torrent and confused, beached himself on the side of the road,” Calder told news.com.au.

"Think it's safe to go back in the water? Think again! A bull shark washed up in Ayr. Stay out of floodwater" tweeted Queensland Fire & Emergency. (Wait, was that a quote from Sharknado? We're going to need a bigger movie!)

The meter-and-a-half (5 ft) bull shark was quite dead when it was discovered by passersby - no mascara shotgun needed.

Psst, want to learn how to win at claw machines? If there's one guy that can teach you, it'll be claw machine master Chen Zhitong of Xiamen, China. Last year, he won over 15,000 stuffed animals from those infernal claw crane game machines!

From Great Big Story:

There are two types of claw machines. With one, you can win with your skills. The other kind is programmed. No matter how good your skill is, you are not going to win ...

There are several key parameters to winning.

First is the claw's holding capacity. It needs to be tight enough.

Second is the angle of claw rotation.

Third is the layout of toys.

View the YouTube Clip:

Image: Amy Peterson

When single mom Amy Peterson got the school's note about a father-daughter dance, she couldn't bear the thought that her daughter Gracie, 6, couldn't go.

"When the flyer went out about the dance Gracie came home and asked me to be her date," Peterson told TODAY, "I gladly accepted and filled out the form and sent the money to the school. Four weeks passed and finally the dance came. Gracie and I came up with the idea for me to dress up as a man so I did just that."

But the crafty mom's plan was foiled when the school learned that she planned to cross-dress to attend the dance, and forbid her from attending.

Image: Avi/Wikipedia

We passed through the city of Longview, Washington, on our recent family trip, and my wife noticed that the town is famous for the "Nutty Narrows Bridge," a bridge built solely for squirrels.

In 1963, resident Amos Peters decided that there were too many squirrels flattened by cars when running across the street to the park, so he built a mini-suspension bridge to keep the squirrels safe. A local councilwoman named it the "Nutty Narrows Bridge" after the state's Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and the name stuck.

To date, the Nutty Narrows Bridge has the title of the World's Narrowest Bridge and also the World's Narrowest Animal Crossing. It was also the world's first bridge built just for squirrels!

Thanks Tiffany!

Vincent de Boer's calligraphy art is simply magical. See him create this "Forever" brush typography art with simply a brush, some paint and about a bajillion ton of talent.

The making of video is not to be missed:

Even in its state of extreme disrepair, it's easy to see the fairy tale quality of the Miranda Castle or Chateau de Noisy in Belgium. Behind Closed Doors urban exploration website explains:

The castle remained occupied by the [Liedekerke-Beaufort] family until World War II when it was taken over by the National Railway Company of Belgium (NMBS) who used it as an orphanage. It remained in use as an orphanage until 1980.

The building has stood empty since 1991 and has fallen into a severe state of disrepair. The municipality of Celles have offered to take over the building but the family have refused. They now plan to demolish the building later in 2014.

The castle structure is severely damaged, but it's still quite beautiful:

View more over at Behind Closed Doors.

The pounding rain, the stormy seas, and the lone sports car traveling on a narrow road - how exactly did the photographer take this amazing shot and survive the harrowing experience?

Let Indian photographer Vatsal Kataria explain in this interview with DIY Photography:

DIYP: How did you come up with the idea? What inspired you?

Vatsal: I am commercial still life photographer but one day I was in my studio without any projects. I saw a photo of a toy car near a waterfall so decided how I can do something like this but without going anywhere. So I started working on my first project.

DIYP:  How much time it usually takes to build a location for your miniature shots?

Vatsal: it depends on the project. Sometimes it takes me 1 day, or sometimes whole week for just one picture. So it totally depends on the complexity of the project.

DIYP: What materials do you mainly use?

Vatsal: I use lots of products. My main aim is to create everything with the cheapest way possible so that if anyone wants to do something they can. I use plaster of Paris, baking powder, pit sand and clay, and that’s it.

View the rest of the interview (and many more fantastic photos) over at DIY Photography.