Fujitsu has developed robot teddy bears that respond to human behavior. Serkan Toto reports from a trade show that demonstrated them:

I was surprised how responsive the robots actually are. It takes just a split second to detect the presence of a human being (the bears have a sensor for that built into their nose) and after that, it’s possible for them to interact and “communicate” with humans through face recognition and constant tracking of the position of the human conversation partner.

Depending on how you behave, the bear reacts differently: it laughs, waves its paws, moves its feet etc. (the robot are hundreds of pre-programmed patterns of behavior). The bears are equipped with 12 joints, multiple touch sensors, microphones, speakers, and accelerometers.

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The Rose Center at the American Museum of Natural History is holding a video contest that invites people to express how scientific discovery impacted their lives. The prize is a trip to the Rose Center in New York City. This video shows one young applicant demonstrating a remarkable knowledge of astronomy. Like Kyle VanHemert of Gizmodo says "It's like a supernova of cute."

http://www.amnh.org/rc10/ via Gizmodo

Beatrice Delap, 9, of Greenwich, UK, is a big fan of The Pirates of the Caribbean films. She wrote to Johnny Depp, the actor who played pirate character Captain Jack Sparrow, asking for his assistance in a mutiny at her school. Depp showed up in person as Sparrow and did so:

He made the one-off trip after nine-year-old pupil Beatrice Delap wrote to the star asking for help staging a 'mutiny' against the teachers, as he was filming at the nearby 18th century Old Naval College.[...]

The school was told just ten minutes before that Depp would be arriving and two blacked-out cars swept through the school gates.

An onlooker said she heard the most 'incredible screams of joy' as the actor, in full make-up, then entered the school.

Link via Sci Fi Wire | Photo: Cavan Pawson

My toddler is only now putting together very simple sentences, so I have sometime to prepare myself for the questions that kids ask that parents aren't sure how to handle.

Anyway, Uncle of the blog Say Uncle offered this story about his four-year old son, who had a question about his genitalia:

Got Junior out of the shower and then put The Second in the tub. I was sitting around when my wife walks in and says: You need to talk to your son. He has a question about his balls.

I sat there for a moment pondering what exactly a four year old could ask about his junk. And I settled on things like: What are they for? Why are they fun to play with? Why does it hurt when I get hit in them?

You know, typical ball stuff. Because, frankly, I had no idea what he was about to ask.

I walk in to the bathroom and he’s in the tub checking himself out. And I say Your mom said you had a question about your dudes?

I won't spoil the rest. But Uncle closes with this salient fact about parenting:

With kids, you mentally prepare for something, and it never goes the way you prepare for.

Link | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user vomsorb used under Creative Commons license

Sesame Street is coming to Nigeria, and the producers have tailored it to meet local public health needs. To address the rising tide of HIV infection in that country, they've created a HIV-positive character:

The show stars Kami, a girl muppet who is HIV-positive, has golden hair and a zest for adventure; and Kobi, an energetic, furry, blue muppet whose troublesome escapades help others learn from his mistakes.

In a country with a population of over 150 million -- where, according to the CIA World Factbook, nearly half are under the age of 14 -- the show will address some of the biggest challenges faced by young people in the region: AIDS, malaria, gender inequality, religious differences -- as well as many positive aspects of Nigerian life. In the case of Zobi, this is characterized by an obsessive love of yams -- a staple food in the Nigerian diet.

Link via Super Punch | Photo: Sesame Workshop

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Luke Geissbühler and his 7-year old son, Max, sent a camera attached to a balloon up into very low earth orbit:

Their so-called spacecraft was a helium-filled weather balloon rated to burst at 19-feet in diameter with a high-definition camera placed in a capsule handmade out of Styrofoam.

They attached a parachute to the payload to bring the camera safely back to Earth.

The balloon rose 19 miles into the stratosphere before rupturing, briefly experienced weightlessness, and then plummeted to the earth. It landed about 30 miles north of the launch site.

The elder Geissbühler estimates that the entire project cost just $400-500.

Link via Slashdot

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A Story Before Bed is a website that allows parents with webcams to upload videos of themselves reading bedtime stories to their children, which the children can access when desired. High-resolution images of the books' pages flip across the screen to create the impression of a real mutual reading experience.

The library of available books has continued to grow, and now the site has begun featuring authors of children's books reading their own stories. This series begins wtih Oliver Chin's Baltazar and the Flying Pirates, but promises to include more.

Link | A Story Before Bed

A fifteen-year old boy in Italy needed a new heart, but was ineligible for a human heart transplant. So doctors put in a new type of artificial heart that they expect will keep him alive for 20-25 years:

Dr Amodeo said the artificial heart was around 4cm long and had been placed inside the left ventricle and its connection with the ascending aorta.

He said: "The device is an electrically activated hydraulic pump and is entirely located inside the thorax, in order to reduce the risk of infection.

"It is powered through a plug positioned behind the left ear and connected to the battery that the patient holds on a belt and is charged during the night like a mobile phone.

Link via Gizmodo | Photo by Flickr user Peter Burgin used under Creative Commons license

In a column at Salon, Madeline Holler shares her story about giving birth at home. She initially decided to do so in front of her young children, ages 3 and 7, so that the childbirth was a whole-family experience:

I shut out the noise, pushed through the pain and squeezed my son out the rest of the way. I reached for him while still on my knees and then turned to rest my back against the side of the tub.

Happy, relieved and a little overwhelmed, I threw my head back against the side of the pool to look at Wayne. My cheek brushed against Beatrice as she reached over to touch her brother's back. I pushed my head into her side, an armless hug, a reassuring nudge. I felt her solid body and her softness next to me.

"Can I hold him?" she asked.

After the cord was cut each sister took turns with their brother. In the meantime, we chatted, I answered the midwife's questions, remembered to actually nurse the little guy.

Link via Momlogic | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user 3Neus used under Creative Commons license

Melissa Peacock, 17, has crippling headaches because of a rare medical condition in which her body produces too much spinal fluid. To relieve pressure on her brain, doctors hooked up a tube up to drain the excess fluid directly into her stomach:

Doctors punctured her skull to drain the fluid nine times but, when the fluid returned, they decided on a more drastic operation.

‘I’ve got a lot of scars on my head from various operations – but I try to make sure my hairstyle always covers them up,’ said Melissa.

Surgeons twice tried to attach a tube from her lower spine to her stomach but both times the tubes shifted.

They then decided to insert a permanent tube directly into her brain.

Link via GearFuse | Photo: Caters

A Spanish law declared that women were entitled to schedule a half hour off of work per day for the first nine months after childbirth in order to facilitate breastfeeding. When a man challenged the law as discriminatory, a European court declared that fathers are entitled to the same right:

The Spanish man who challenged the law, Pedro Manuel Roca Alvarez, said his request to take breastfeeding leave from his job in Galicia was rejected because the mother of his child was self-employed.

The top court said such a refusal could have the effect of forcing self-employed mothers to limit their work because the father cannot share the burden.

Link | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user Lars Ploughmann used under Creative Commons license

Lexi Lacey was born premature with a birthweight of 14 ounces. Doctors gave her just a ten percent chance of survival. But she improved -- in part because of a sandwich bag that doctors are using as an insulating jacket:

Her mother Chelsea Rowberry, 17, said: ''The doctors told us they had never known a baby born as prematurely as Lexi survive.

''She was so tiny the only thing they had to keep her body temperature warm was a sandwich bag from the hospital canteen - it's incredible to think that saved her life.

Lexi is now back at home with her parents.

Link | Photo: SWNS

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Your adorable kid video for today is this young lady rockin' out while eating chili. She's the daughter of semi-famous DJ Omar Santana and she's listening to one of her daddy's tracks.

via Urlesque

A boy had sex with the 14-year old daughter of a San Jose, California police officer. So the police officer drove to the boy's home, handcuffed him, and lectured him for several minutes:

The officer said: "It does not bode well for you. Do you know what that means? No? Not a good thing that the person you had sex with is a cop's daughter. The district attorney will probably file charges.

"A cop's daughter is not somebody you mess around with. You're stupid."

One of the boy's parents videoed the incident and complained to police.

Link | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user Elvert Barnes used under Creative Commons license

Jim of Jim's Pancakes makes creatively shaped and arranged pancakes in order to entertain his young daughter, Allison. Recently, after touring a natural history museum, he made this 3D arrangement of pancakes in the shape of a dinosaur.

Link via Great White Snark

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Jim's Pancakes
Tetris Pancakes