Talk about a helicopter parent! Paul Wallich came up with an idea that would free him from escorting his young son 400 meters to the school bus stop every day, and still enable him to keep an eye on the child. He built a quadcopter to fly along with him! It has a redundant system, controlled by a GPS beacon emanating from the child's backpack, plus a remote control system for backup. An attached smartphone acts as both a camera and communication device. Read more about the technical aspects of this project at ieee spectrum. Link -via Gizmodo
(Image credit: Paul Wallich)
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can be learned in no other way. - Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, later known by his pen name Mark Twain, was born on November 30, 1835, 177 years ago today. Twain is possibly the most-quoted (and misquoted) American author in history. Metafilter has a long list of links about Twain, his life, and his works. Link
We all learned about DNA with graphic illustrations of a colorful double helix. Now we have an actual photograph, from an electron microscope, of a DNA strand. Enzo di Fabrizio and a team at the University of Genoa in Italy developed a technique to isolate and dehydrate a single strand of DNA, seen here stretched between two microscopic silicon pillars. Read about how they did it, and see a zoomed-in image at the Atlantic. Link
(Image credit: Enzo di Fabrizio)
The caption at reddit says, "The morning after his first catnip." However, at the Norwegian news site it came from, the translated caption is
cat or rabbit
Squeez enjoying himself with the carrot in the morning.
Can we assume the cat is named Squeez? Link
Nikita the kitten is learning to be a fierce warrior and deadly nocturnal predator. -via Buzzfeed
In this trailer, Captain Cuddles stars as a cat who is moonlighting as a club DJ, which causes problems in the home. Presented by Fresh Step with performances by Heather McDonald and Warlock The Cat. -via Laughing Squid
Contractors who build subdivisions sometimes seem draw words out of thin air to name streets and cul-de-sacs. Still, you have to wonder who was responsible for thinking up the name of Broomrape Lane in Havasu City, Arizona. Four houses must use it for their address. That's just one of a list of ten embarrassing addresses, whether they are streets, buildings, or apartment complexes, at Curbed. Link -via Fark
Illustrator Scott Benson created an awesome poster/chart that celebrates space exploration and travel. It changes with the light!
This illustrated chart was designed by me and hand-printed by my dear friends at Commonwealth Press. It features 8 planets, 4 astronomers, 4 cosmonauts, 3 astronauts, 3 comets, 3 spacecraft and 1 ill-fated hound, along with helpful annotations. In the dark it features 15 mythological figures of the heavens. It is printed on sturdy black paper with white, blue and glow in the dark ink which appears as faded grey in sunlight.
A limited number of these prints are available at Benson's Etsy shop. Link -via Laughing Squid
The creator of the webcomic xkcd, Randall Munroe, is one of the internet's favorite people. The "webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language" delivered plenty of each. Then it veered into medical science. Munroe explained that everything changed when his fiancé (now wife) was diagnosed with cancer. Along the way, the webcomic pointed out some powerful observations in dealing with the disease. This one in particular made it clear that the only indication of beating cancer is time. Today's comic announces that it has been two years since the diagnosis. Congratulations to the Munroes on this important milestone. Happy Biopsy-versary! Link -Thanks, Rojomoke!
The Rolling Stones have been together for fifty years and have released 25 albums. It couldn't have been easy for Nerve to rank them all, but I cannot argue with their #1 pick. However, I personally would have placed Exile on Main Street a little higher than #10. Link -via Flavorwire
That would be Bo Obama, the president's pooch, inspecting the Christmas decorations at the White House. Link -via The Daily What
How the inquisitive monkey and two bicycles saved a German couple's lives.
German-born Jewish couple Hans and Margret Rey were starting to feel nervous in the fall of 1939. The Nazis were getting uncomfortably close to their adopted hometown of Paris, where they had moved four years earlier to work on children's books. Rather than tempt fate, the Reys fled their Paris apartment for a chateau in the countryside.
Although friends had lent them the chateau, authorities quickly turned up to investigate the German-accented strangers. Hans assured the policeman that he and Margret were simply writing children's books. As proof, he showed the officers sketches of one of their creations: The Adventures of Fifi, a story about the travails of an inquisitive monkey. Satisfied that the Reys weren't sleeper agents, the officers departed.
The Reys' peace would prove to be short-lived, though. The couple soon realized that it would be best to flee the continent entirely and returned to Paris to begin the mountain of paperwork required to leave wartime France. As fellow refugees flooded into the city, the Reys could only cross their fingers that the necessary documents would arrive before it was too late.
Luckily for the Reys, they had a secret weapon: the same monkey who already bailed them out once. Despite the political turmoil in Paris, the couple sold the manuscript for Fifi. The publisher's advance was enough to fund their escape. Hans spent the equivalent of a month's rent on a jumble of bicycle parts and managed to cobble together two bikes. In their baskets, the Reys carried the absolute essentials: bread, cheese, water, and five of their priceless manuscripts, including Fifi. The Reys left Paris in early morning rain on June 12, 1940. Two days later, the Nazis captured the city.
This is Bandit, a robot specially designed by a team at the University of Southern California to interact with autistic children in a non-threatening manner. It can speak, change facial expressions, move around, play games, and make decisions on what to do next. In preliminary experiments with 15 autistic children, interactions with the robot for as little as five minutes can cause the child to become more vocal and sociable.
That may seem surprising, since robots are hardly known for warmth and sociability. Yet there is increasing evidence that kids with autism respond more naturally to machines than they do to people. Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen, the director of the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge in England, along with other autism experts, believes that robots, computers and electronic gadgets may be appealing because they are predictable, unlike people. You can pretty much guess what a computer is going to do next about 90 percent of the time, but human interactions obey very few entirely predictable laws. And this, Baron-Cohen explains, is difficult for children with autism. “They find unlawful situations toxic,” he says. “They can’t cope. So they turn away from people and turn to the world of objects.”
Read an extensive article about the robot therapist at PopSci. Link -via Fark
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