Hair loss is among the effects of treatments that young cancer patients face. So a group of Facebook users is promoting a novel response to this problem: the production of a bald Barbie doll. The idea is that interacting with a childhood glamour icon experiencing cancer will help the children cope more effectively:

Jane Bingham, Sypin’s friend and co-founder of the Facebook page, lost her hair while undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“My daughter had some difficulty accepting me going from a long-haired blonde to a bald woman,” she wrote in a blog. A bald Barbie, she added, could be a great way for young girls to cope with hair loss that happens to them or to a loved one.

Nearly 60,000 people are fans of the page, created just three weeks ago, and that number is still climbing. Many commenters shared their support for the bald Barbie.

“I can only imagine what young children feel when they lose their hair,” wrote a cancer patient. “Let’s make this happen and teach them young that hair doesn’t make someone beautiful, it’s whats inside that truly matters!”

Mattel has yet to respond beyond a form letter. But the group has vowed to get the company's attention and persuade it to produce this Barbie doll.

News Story and Facebook Group -- Thanks, Lynn! | Image: Bald and Beautiful Barbie

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At least, a lot of people seem to think so. Here's a lion trying furiously to get at a child visiting a museum in New Zealand. Are the people laughing at the child or the futile, hopeless existence of the lion?

-via Super Punch

Everyday carry is what people intentionally carry in their pockets or purses on a daily basis to respond to various needs or crises. It's a discussion point on the Internet as people try to select equipment that keeps them in a state of readiness without compromising too much on weight, cost or variability. Common items include knives, multitools, handguns, lighters, flashlights, smartphones and notepads. The idea is, like the Boy Scout motto, to be prepared. In that spirit, John C. Daub asks what kids should carry in their pockets every day and makes a few suggestions, such as a keyring, a small flashlight, a multitool and cash.

My own children are too young for any of this, but I like the idea of getting them ready to face problems on their own with the right pocket equipment.

What do you think kids should carry around on an everyday basis?

Link -via Say Uncle | Photo: Everyday Carry

PS: While you're at it, you may want to check out the NeatoShop's collection of multitools.

The Caped Crusaders rule the night -- or at least the late afternoon, because bedtime is at 6 PM. Etsy seller Elisabeth Spivey makes adorable baby costumes, including ones for up and coming superheroes.

Link and Link -via The Mary Sue

Don't worry! Etsy seller Michael Riley's toy tattoo machines only hold crayons. At least for now. Each one is about six inches long and holds standard-sized crayons.

Link -via I Heart Choas

Give a child some art supplies, a wall of the house, and two minutes to work. You'll have a cleaning disaster on your hands. Fortunately for this artist, it was completely intentional. Yayoi Kusama created a gallery space that was completely blank. Then he invited visitors to the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art to place stickers wherever they wanted in that exhibit. The result was a wonderland of colors.

Link | Exhibition Website

The daughter of redditor papachon sometimes wears his Oakley-brand sunglasses. She looks just like an action star with them. So, of course, she just walks away from explosions.

Link -via Geekosystem

We do time outs at my home. But only for the kids, although every now and then I'd like to have one, too! Wisteria offers this clever stool design with a five-minute hourglass. Use it to keep track of your little gremlin's punishment.

Link -via Super Punch

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"Is this going to hurt?"

"I don't know. You're going to have to tell me after."

The dad, rather than the mom, is participating in this stunt. This is as it should be, for this is the Way of the Dad.

-via Blame It on the Voices

Previously: Removing a Child's Loose Tooth. With a Rocket.

Anna Chambers nailed this baby dress. What's especially neat is that it conveys, through just a few shapes and colors, the image of Kermit the Frog so well. It's her contribution to a Jim Henson tribute gallery.

Crafter's Website -via The Mary Sue

Angela Zhang is only seventeen, but she's already engaged in groundbreaking nanotech research. Specifically, she's developed a thingamabobber* that fights cancer:

Zhang's work reflects the growing use of nanotechnology to treat diseases of the human body on the smallest scales. She used gold and iron oxide-based nanoparticles that could act as markers for MRI and photoacoustic imaging, even as it delivered the drug salinomycin to attack cancer tumors.

"Angela created a nanoparticle that is like a Swiss army knife of cancer treatment," said Tejal Desai, a bioengineer at the University of California, San Francisco, and a competition judge. "She showed great creativity and initiative in designing a nanoparticle system that can be triggered to release drugs at the site of the tumor while also allowing for noninvasive imaging."

Link -via The Mary Sue

*A technical term. You wouldn't understand without advanced study.

No, your signal strength isn't low. It's just that your fancy new smartphone is made out of wood. Kyle Bean -- an artist whose work we've featured extensively at Neatorama -- made this toy with blocks representing apps that can be removed and re-arranged.

Link Original Artist's website -via Swiss Miss

This beautiful photo by Rudolf Brosztl shows a loving couple counting the days until their daughter will be born. There are three more images in the set at the link.

Link | Photographer's Website

When your kids complain about doing their math homework, let them know that it was always thus, and always shall be. Why, even ancient Sumerian kids had to do math! Here's one math problem that was found inscribed on a clay tablet at Šuruppak, an archaeological dig site in modern-day Iraq:

A loose translation of the problem is: A granary. Each man receives 7 sila of grain. How many men? That is, the tablets concern a highly artificial problem and certainly present a mathematical exercise and not an archival document. The tablets give the statement of the problem and its answer (164571 men - expressed in the sexagesimal system S since we are counting men - with 3 sila left over).

Link -via Boing Boing | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user Nic McPhee used under Creative Commons license

My earliest memories of television are scenes from Sesame Street. This nurturing show has engaged children who have grown up, brought more children into the world, and introduced them to the show. There are many reasons why Sesame Street has been so successful -- the clever writing, puppetry, directing -- but perhaps foremost among them is that the show has always been guided by child psychologists who understand how kids think and what they need. Esther Ingils-Arkell has an article at io9 about how they have shaped the show with their professional knowledge:

This is why misanthropic Oscar, one of my favorites, was added. He was there to teach kids that people had radically different points of view. Oscar likes trash, worms, and being mean to people. Kids had to learn, and respect, that there were people like that in the world. Oscar, as nearly the only Sesame Street character who could get angry about anything, also served as a guide for children on how to manage negative emotions, both their own and other people's.

In the early 1980s, Will Lee, the man who played a character called Mr. Hooper on the show, died. Show runners consulted a battery of psychologists who specialized in grief counseling, and conducted studies to see if children could understand the concept of death and deal with it without trauma. Only after that did they go on to film the episode. They scheduled it to appear on Thanksgiving. This seems cruel to the kids, until you take into account that that was the day most likely for parents to be home with their kids, at which point it only seems cruel to the parents. The episode was well received, though, and the show hired other actors.

Link | Image: Children's Television Workshop