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New research on child cognition show the ways in which young children's brains are far superior to ours.

using new research techniques and tools, they've revealed that the baby brain is abuzz with activity, capable of learning astonishing amounts of information in a relatively short time. Unlike the adult mind, which restricts itself to a narrow slice of reality, babies can take in a much wider spectrum of sensation - they are, in an important sense, more aware of the world than we are.

This hyperawareness comes with several benefits. For starters, it allows young children to figure out the world at an incredibly fast pace. Although babies are born utterly helpless, within a few years they've mastered everything from language - a toddler learns 10 new words every day - to complex motor skills such as walking. According to this new view of the baby brain, many of the mental traits that used to seem like developmental shortcomings, such as infants' inability to focus their attention, are actually crucial assets in the learning process.

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4th grade is turning out to be quite the challenge for Katie. She's in Sylvan now twice a week to better her math scores. She's started spontaneously making up mathematical word problems, so I think that's money well spent.

Last night she needed a lot of help creating a timeline for a science report she's writing. She needed to pick a scientist or inventor and put together a whole suite of reportage about that person. Her first pick was the man who created Coca-Cola, but with a bit of nudging from Amy she's switched her subject to Rosalyn Yalow, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology, and not coincidentally the mother of a friend of ours, prominent fan Ben Yalow. (Basically, she created the process of radioisotope tagging that lead to our understanding of how insulin and many other hormones & medicines work in the body.)

She got frustrated at having to start over on the timeline leventy-seven times, but finally finished it an hour after her normal bedtime.

The CBC podcast Quirks & Quarks had a segment on stars that are moving so fast they have bow waves and tails like comets. Here is the JPL press release. They bring to mind a series of short stories being written by typographer.

On Mars.

Previous orbiting missions had beamed back data showing that there is water ice on the red planet, but Phoenix's discovery is the first to find direct evidence. "I can now say I'm the first mission to Mars to touch and then *taste* the water," came the message from Phoenix's Twitter feed yesterday evening

Via ironymaiden.

An experiment.

When the international measure changes over time.

Click here to find out what a boomerang does in the absence of gravity.

Via usagiguy

Scienceblogs posts this "Guide to Getting Optimally Wired"

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Space curry.

A level three Menger sponge made of business cards.

Levitation using metamaterials.

Here are a couple of articles about a man in Japan who can handle electricity with his bare hands. Maybe he can have a part in season 2 of Heroes.

The Singapore Underwater World Aquarium has chipped a bunch of its fish so that when they swim past screens the information on that fish's name, species, etc is displayed. Having tried to match the picture with the fish at aquariums in the past, I'm pretty jazzed about the idea.

Via.

No, not really, they're just discussing it, which is almost as shocking.

Let Tesla deter those pesky auto thieves. This image is not Photoshopped!

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Swarmanoid!

     A team at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium is 
     embarking on a 42-month research project to build and 
     test a 60-strong swarm of small, autonomous robots -- 
     the swarmanoid -- capable of collaborating in 3-D 
     environments.

Footbots provide the motive force, handbots do jobs and can climb walls, while eyebots have an overview while hanging on the ceiling and do the directing. The eventual goal is to make them micro- and nanoscale.

Scientists have taught dolphins to combine vocalizations with rhythm to produce the Batman theme. Oddly, the training was at EPCOT, a Disney theme park. (via Warrent Ellis)