The Blog of Record

He almost takes a break to pick his nose a couple of times, but I still like his version better than the original.

Found here.

When kids could be kids: Teaching children to swim in pre-war Britain:

Click here for more photos of what childhood was like in pre-Nanny-State Britain.

Her 19-year-old husband is facing six years in prison for having sex with a minor. Judging by her photo, though, he may be telling the truth when he says he thought she was 15.

The story read like a sensation until it became clear that these people were Gypsies. From what I know about Eastern European Gypsies, it’s nothing out of the ordinary for them. The girl’s grandmother says that much:

‘It’s normal for our girls to have babies young. It’s our tradition. But I didn’t want it for my Kordeza – I felt she was too young.’

 The girl obviously had a different opinion, as it appears from the report that she pursued the man deliberately.

It seems that the brain’s visual cortex can create images from sound, and this British boy was taught to use this ability by a blind psychologist who has been teaching the technique for many years:

Born without sight, 7-year-old Lucas Murray used to be so afraid of walking he wouldn’t take a step without his parents by his side.

“He would walk, but he would hold our hands. Always,” said his mother, Sarah Murray of Dorset, England. “When he was younger, he wouldn’t even walk on a bumpy surface.”

But now Lucas has become more mobile than his parents ever imagined, running with friends, playing basketball and jumping on a trampoline — all on his own.

The incredible change, his mother said, is owed to a technique called echolocation, similar to the method used by dolphins and bats, that allows Lucas to paint a picture of his surroundings using sound he creates himself.

To “see” the world around him, he clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth and listens to the echo that bounces back. From the sound, he can make out the location, depth and shape of objects around him, allowing him to navigate even unfamiliar areas.

Interesting discussion of echolocation for the blind in the story.

And I bet he is the cutest Mensa member, too:

While other two-year-olds are discovering the joy of playgrounds, Oscar Wrigley would rather be learning about wildlife or the history of Ancient Rome.

He has recently taken to conducting classical music as he listens in the back of the car and identifies the different instruments.

So his parents were not surprised when, at the ripe old age of two years, five months and 11 days, he became the youngest boy in Britain to be accepted by Mensa.

With an IQ of at least 160, he has the same score as the likes of Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

‘Oscar was recently telling my wife about the reproductive cycle of penguins,’ said his father Joe, 29, an IT specialist from Reading in Berkshire.

A 13-year-old Anne Frank leans over her second-floor balcony to get a good look at a neighbor on her wedding day. This 20-second film made on July 22, 1941 in Amsterdam, is the only film footage of the young Jewish diarist who died in a Nazi death camp.

Source (via this).

It looks like a dogfight is taking place above them. (Click the photo to enlarge.)

Source.

An example of the wire cage which East Poplar borough council in London proposed to fix to the outside of their tenement windows, so that babies could benefit from fresh air and sunshine. January 27, 1934.

 Source.

Those days are never coming back.

Source.

Looks pretty innocent to me, but, needless to say, some people are outraged. People do seem to get outraged rather easily these days, especially on the Internet.

Photo by Jimmy Sime from here.

The mother of a 14-year-old boy who weighs 555 lbs. has been arrested and charged with criminal neglect:

The boy obviously has some health condition that makes him unable to stop eating, like Halle Berry’s son in Monster’s Ball.

It’s also clear from the story that he got this way by eating several lunches a day at school. Wouldn’t this fact place at least some of the responsibility for the boy’s obesity on the school?

Lots of great Apollo 11 photos here, reminding us of the time when America was a daring nation that knew it could achieve any goal it set for itself, no matter how impossible it might seem. The spirit of that time is gone forever, it seems.

(Click the photo to enlarge.)

"'The Eagle Has Landed' - Two Men Walk on the Moon." A girl reads Apollo 11 moon landing report in The Washington Post. July 21, 1969

I hope the boy has human friends, too. He looks kinda sad.

Not sure where this photo was taken but the faces in the second one on the source page are definitely Russian. Well, “Soviet”.

Sharecroppers’ children gather food for their 4th of July celebration, whites and blacks together, 1936, Hill House, Mississippi. Photo by Dorothea Lange.

Source.

This village in India has an unusually high proportion of twins. Interestingly, the number of twins being born there only started to increase three generations ago. The rate of twinning is already almost six times the global average, and is still increasing year-on-year. The local doctor believes there’s something in the local food and drink that is causing this.

The photo below shows 78 pairs of twins (156) out of a total of 178 people (22 parents holding their children).

I’m waiting for it to be blamed on global warming. Or climate change. Or even both.