Artist Amanda Vissell made four posters to inspire girls to be self-reliant and strong. I want this one for my girls' room.


Link via Boing Boing

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CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Its facility in Geneva, Switzerland, includes the Large Hadron Collider. To explain what they do there, the physicists at CERN have published a pop-up book called Voyage to the Heart of the Matter.

Link via GeekDad

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Aaron and Melanie Richman were relocating from Colorado to Missouri when they stopped for gas. They left their six month old baby inside the car while talking to the people who were driving the rental truck full of their belongings. That's when a carjacker decided to take their car:

The Richmans both ran towards the car and Aaron tried to push Melanie into the car, but instead she smashed out the passenger side window with her elbow. Aaron was able to climb inside the vehicle, while Melanie was dragged for a short time before letting go of the outside of the car.

Inside the vehicle, police said, Aaron hit and kicked the driver as he tried to save his child. The beating caused the carjacker to crash the car and then he fled the area on foot.

http://www.kctv5.com/news/25904899/detail.html via Buzzfeed

The NeoNature infant incubator by the firm Design That Matters isn't so much a particular design, but an approach to building incubators. The focus is on how to use certain parts from many different cars to consistently build usable incubators:

The greatest design challenge for the group has been resisting standardization. “As soon as you say, ‘You can only use a 4Runner’s headlight,’ the value goes out the window,” Mr. Prestero said. This problem might ultimately determine what aspects of NeoNurture’s approach will translate to mass production.

“Dashboard fans for circulation, signal lights and door chimes for alarms, the battery — those pieces aren’t so difficult to source locally,” Mr. Prestero continued. “A headlight filament might use a different gas, though, and that’s when it gets complicated.”

Whatever form a production version takes, NeoNurture has already posed a compelling — and empowering — argument. “I don’t know where you get a replacement incubator filter in a remote Nepalese village,” Mr. Prestero said, “but you likely can find someone there who can replace a car’s air filter. That’s where this idea really has virtue.”

Link via Gizmodo | Photo: Design That Matters

Previously: Backpack Neonatal Incubator

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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