The Kid Should See This.
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There's just so much science, nature, music, art, technology, storytelling and assorted good stuff out there that my kids (and maybe your kids) haven't seen. It's most likely not stuff that was made for them...
But we don't underestimate kids around here.
Kid-friendly not-made-for-kids videos for all! Collected by Rion Nakaya and her three four year old co-curator.
Tip Jar: Curating this blog takes work! If you like the videos on this site, please support the science education projects that we've picked on DonorsChoose.org.
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Penguins can’t fly, but they can jump! Seriously. They can jump over 9 feet (or up to 3 meters), depending on their species. How? They wrap their bodies in a cloak of air bubbles that come from their feathers — swimming quickly to the surface, they burst out of the water and leap to their destination.
These are Gentoo Penguins and they’re demonstrating both the ease and difficulty of their jumping skills. Pretty phenomenal. (And it sounds like the tourists filming this video think so, too.)
Be sure to check out the BBC video in this post that shows the “coat of air bubbles” underwater.
via Science Dump.
After a friend tweeted about a research page full of passive motion robotics videos by Andy Ruina, Professor of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at Cornell and of bicycle physics paper fame (SciFri video), I happened upon this 2008 video of Andy introducing his 22-pound, four-legged bi-ped robot named Ranger.
“The basic way this thing walks is that it falls down over and over again… this is walking as falling and catching yourself over and over again.” In 2011, Ranger did this for 40.5 miles — that’s 307.75 laps on a running track or 65km (watch the video) — unassisted over almost 31 hours before it needed a battery recharge.
I love how not-human this bot looks. The kid should see this!
h/t @themexican.
The kid and I both exclaimed WHOA at the same time when we saw this jumping Sand Flea robot make its second jump. From Boston Dynamics:
Sand Flea is an 11-lb robot with one trick up its sleeve: Normally it drives like an RC car, but when it needs to it can jump 30 feet into the air. An onboard stabilization system keeps it oriented during flight to improve the view from the video uplink and to control landings. Current development of Sand Flea is funded by the The US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force.
Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics firm who made the BigDog Quadruped Robot in 2008, and has partnered with DARPA to fund many of their robots, including this one. They also recently made news with their collaboration on a robotic cheetah.
via @jcn.
Do cats always land on their feet? High-speed photography shows us the answer.
Thanks, @cosentino.
Suddenly walking octopus videos are all over the internet! This one stands out because it’s so very tiny and cute! There’s a bit more at Octopus Chronicles as to why they might be found out of the water. (Hint: nom nom nom.)
Via NotCot.
Victor Ortega-Jimenez and Robert Dudley of the University of California, Berkeley, studied the high-speed acrobatics by filming birds under a simulated rain shower and tracking their motion from the video. They found that their flight wasn’t disrupted while spinning and that their moving heads reached up to 30 times the acceleration of gravity.
“The shaking performed by hummingbirds is amazing,” says Ortega-Jimenez. “Humans have blackouts when they reach five times the acceleration of gravity.”
Although a hummingbird’s feathers naturally repel water, the impact of a raindrop can make moisture seep through. The ability to expel water could therefore help them avoid chills and stay healthy. When perched, the birds can shake for twice as long at even higher speeds.
From NewScientist.com.
About 4,000 species of cockroaches are known to science, and all but the leaproach scuttle on the ground. (Zoologist Mike) Picker and his colleague Jonathan Colville discovered the leaproach in 2006 as the insects hopped around a field of sedge grass in South Africa…
The new study reveals the leaproach uses its legs much like grasshoppers do, and yet — ounce for ounce — the leaproach far out-jumps locusts. While a grasshopper can jump up to 20 body lengths, a leaproach can sail forward 48 body lengths…
“They’re extremely accurate, and they don’t just sit around,” (Mike Picker) said. “They’re always moving, moving, moving, jumping, jumping, jumping.”
Via Wired Science.
Cats are nimble creatures, we know. But slow them down to 2,500 frames per second (100 times slower), and they look like they defy gravity!
