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At first I thought, "This is a hoax." But then Zach created, on camera, a detailed painting of Leonardo from The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

via Geekologie

Previously: 8-Year Old Artist Sells Paintings for Tens of Thousands of Dollars

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Instructables user Steve Moseley made a large kinetic marble run on the walls of his son's bedroom. Well, it's mostly kinetic. There are two battery-powered lifts to help keep the marbles in motion.

Link via Make

ABC News writes about a significant increase in the number of American boys who are competing in toddler beauty pageants and taking up cheerleading and ballet:

An estimated 10 percent of contestants are now boys, up from 5 percent five years ago.

Some boys take the stage mere days after being born. "Kevin did really well," one mother said of her 2-week-old son on "Toddlers and Tiaras." "He was awake and wasn't crying."

In some cases, pageant moms admit their sons are filling a void. "When I see little girls, I always think, I could turn my little boys into girls," another mom said. "These are my girls I never had!"

But Miller insists Zander is living out his own dream. "The people who say this is not for little boys need to wake up. We are in 2010. Heading into 2011. I honestly never thought I'd be doing pageants with my son. But he loves it. Everyone loves him."

Video at the link.

Link via J-Walk Blog | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user Jennifer Donley used under Creative Commons license

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Parenting is hard because children are vulnerable and the world is cruel. At some point, a father must introduce his children to Star Wars. Doing so will lead to uncomfortable questions, such as about Greedo. And then there's Jar Jar Binks.

If you have babies or toddlers, watch this video and prepare yourself for "The Talk".

via Comics Alliance

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This brief animated short presents an episode of Dora the Explorer written by Lauren Kyanka, age 4. The cosmology depicted in it is absolutely fascinating.

via Buzzfeed

Previously: Inception Spoof Featuring Dora the Explorer

Instructables user Shawnmelito's daughter has cerebral palsy. So when the family goes swimming, she can only float around or be carried by an adult. To give her more independence, he built her a motorized water scooter that she can control.

Best of all: it was built for a five-year old, and the child has now outgrown it, so Shawn is now offering it free to any child who needs it!

Link via Make

Don't throw away that foreskin -- there's money to be made with it! The parenting blog Stroller Derby has descriptions of three unconventional uses for a removed foreskin:

* Cosmetics: Foreskins are used to make high-end skin creams. The skin products contain fibroblasts grown on the foreskin and harvested from it. One foreskin can be used for decades to produce fancy face cream like the SkinMedica products hawked on Oprah.
* Skin grafts: In addition to making products for skin, a baby’s foreskin can be turned into a skin graft for a burn victim. Because the cells are extremely flexible, they’re less likely to be rejected. Currently, this technology can be lifesaving in providing a real skin “band aid” to cover an open wound while a burn victim heals. Researchers at Harvard and Tufts are working on advanced skin replacements that use human foreskins.
* Cosmetic testing: All those cruelty-free cosmetics you buy? Some of them are tested on foreskins. This yields better results, since they’re human skin. And it saves the lives of the rodents your shampoo would otherwise be tested on.

Link via Marginal Revolution | Photo via Flickr user David Lisbona used under Creative Commons license

Previously: Foreskin Man Protects Baby Boys from Circumcision

Tatiana and Krista Hogan, conjoined twins, are four years old. They are a rarity not only because they've survived so long, but also because they have a partially shared brain:

Adding to the conundrum, of course, are their linked brains, and the mysterious hints of what passes between them. The family regularly sees evidence of it. The way their heads are joined, they have markedly different fields of view. One child will look at a toy or a cup. The other can reach across and grab it, even though her own eyes couldn’t possibly see its location. “They share thoughts, too,” says Louise. “Nobody will be saying anything,” adds Simms, “and Tati will just pipe up and say, ‘Stop that!’ And she’ll smack her sister.” While their verbal development is delayed, it continues to get better. Their sentences are two or three words at most so far, and their enunciation is at first difficult to understand. Both the family, and researchers, anxiously await the children’s explanation for what they are experiencing.

Link via Geekosystem | Photo: Simon Hayter

Lenore Skenazy is famous or infamous (depending on your point of view) for allowing her 9-year old son to travel New York City subways alone and advocating letting children play unsupervised at parks. In a recent column in The Wall Street Journal, she argued that parental fears about Halloween are overrated. There has never been a single incident of poisoned candy being handed out to trick-or-treaters, and no evidence that the day is less safe for children than any other day of the year:

But Elizabeth Letourneau, an associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, studied crime statistics from 30 states and found, "There is zero evidence to support the idea that Halloween is a dangerous date for children in terms of child molestation."

In fact, she says, "We almost called this paper, 'Halloween: The Safest Day of the Year,' because it was just so incredibly rare to see anything happen on that day."

Why is it so safe? Because despite our mounting fears and apoplectic media, it is still the day that many of us, of all ages, go outside. We knock on doors. We meet each other. And all that giving and taking and trick-or-treating is building the very thing that keeps us safe: community.

Link via Hit & Run | Photo by Flickr user bmendz68 used under Creative Commons license

Graco has recalled 2 million strollers 2006-2007 after four child deaths. Follow the links to learn if a Graco stroller that you own is included.

Recall Information | News Story | Photo: Graco

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The Fine Bros. showed popular viral videos to kids and asked the children to explain what happened. Featured videos include Double Rainbow, 2 Cups 2 Bunnies, the frightening Snickers commercial, and Obama's podium falling apart.

via GearFuse

Chad Orzel's young son recently read the classic children's book Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. He asked his father how long it took the rabbit to say goodnight to everything. Orzel ran some calculations based upon the movements of the moon (pictured above) over the course of the story:

So, how can we use this to measure the passage of time? Well, we know that the full moon in the sky covers an angle of about half a degree of arc. On our big copy of the book, the diameter of the moon in the final illustration is just about 7/8" (I only have an English-unit tape measure here), while the distance from the corner of the window to the outer edge of the moon is 2 and 5/8", exactly three times the diameter. So the moon has moved through about 1.5 degrees in the course of the story.

Now, the Earth rotates through 360 degrees in just about 24 hours, which is 15 degrees per hour (the Moon's motion is slightly slower, owing to its orbital motion, but it's not a significant difference for our purposes). This suggests that the bunny's goodnight ritual takes about 0.1 hour, or six minutes.

Link via Geekosystem

Previously on Neatorama:
Goodnight Keith Moon
Goodnight Forest Moon

Chelsea's team in the Premier League -- a professional soccer league in the UK -- has signed an 11-year old boy to play when he's of age. Michael Gyasi was first noticed a year ago and has been under observation by talent scouts since that time:

After a further appearance against them, Chelsea's recruitment staff asked whether Gyasi could come to train with them. He did so during the summer holidays and impressed to such a degree that the club set in motion moves to sign him.

Chelsea must pay compensation to Northampton for their development of the schoolboy, and it is believed that a down-payment of not more than £10,000 has been negotiated. The football authorities prefer clubs to resolve such issues between themselves rather than resort to arbitration. Further payments would be due to Northampton if Gyasi becomes a scholar or turns professional.

Link via Deadspin | Photo: ESPN

Barbara Soper of Rockport, Michigan, gave birth to her first child on August 8, 2008 -- that's 08.08.08. Her next one came on 09.09.09. And her third child was born a few days ago on 10.10.10.

Despite the neat pattern of their children's birthdays, the Sopers insist it was not planned.

The Rockford, Michigan, couple's first child arrived exactly on the couple's due date. But the second baby was born with induced labor ahead of the Sept. 20 due date.

The latest came early because Barbie Soper's doctor wanted to prevent potential health complications. The original due date was Nov. 4.

Link | Photo: AP

Autumn de Forest began painting at a notably talented level by the age of 4. Now, at the age of 8, she's auctioning paintings for tens of thousands of dollars a piece:

“Elephant,” it turned out, was not a fluke. Autumn’s parents bought her museum-quality paints and canvases “to see what would happen,” Doug said, “and in very short order a prolific kind of blossoming happened, and the canvases started getting bigger and bigger.”

In fact, Autumn’s canvases are now so large — typically 4 by 6 feet — that she has to paint them on the floor. Doug built her a sort of wooden bridge so she can sit on it and paint the middle of the canvas. (Autumn is slightly taller than 4-foot-2 and weighs slightly less than 50 pounds.)

Link via Pop Crunch