Stay Curious

Baby Robin Update: Days 11 & 12

Karyn — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:34:21 +0000

Amazingly, the baby robins still make no noise in the nest. I am assuming this is so that they do not draw attention to their location. They are really filling up the nest now (and spilling over the edges!).

Day 11: daily morning check of the nest. All four are still there!

Baby Robins Day 11: feathers

Day 11: As the feathers continue to emerge, the down looks more and more out of place!

Baby Robins Day 12: morning nest check. They are sleepyheads!

Baby Robin Day 12: Remember when that eye was just a tiny slit? Only a week ago!

Baby Robin Day 12: head feathers are coming in replacing downy "mohawk"

Baby Robin Day 12: feathers are looking more and more like they will be ready for flight soon.

Baby Robin Update: Days 9 & 10

Karyn — Wed, 09 May 2012 03:51:36 +0000

The highlight of the first weekend in May was Day 9 & 10 of Baby Robin development. The feathers are just amazing as they emerge.

The nest is getting crowded!

Check out that cute head and the feathers starting to emerge. The feathers on the wing look like a ruff around its little neck.

Day 9: It's all about the feathers.

Feathers emerging.

Wing feathers

These look like paintbrushes to me. Day 9 feathers.

Closeup of the Day 9 feather unveiling.

Day 10: all snuggled in, with feathers fluffed out

Day 10: Baby Robin sporting the mohawk look as down is replaced by feathers.

Day 10: closeup of feathers and down.

Baby Robin Update: Days 7, 8

Karyn — Wed, 09 May 2012 03:33:49 +0000

Time flies! But the baby robins aren’t yet. Nevertheless, they are growing and the most amazing thing is the feather development!

Baby Robins, Day 7, early morning. They usually are sleeping until at least 9am.

Day 7, wing development.

Baby Robins, Day 8. Good morning! "Where's breakfast?"

Day 8, headfeathers coming in.

Day 8, feathers up close. See that tiny toe peeking out?

Day 8, another look at the feather development.

Baby Robin Update: Days 5 & 6

Karyn — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:50:53 +0000

Day 6: Early morning

The robins continue to develop and grow. It is remarkable to observe the rate at which they change.

Day 5, Morning

Day 5: Eye slits getting bigger, heads darkening.

Day 5: Feed me!

Day 6: Feathers developing

Day 6: Eye slits widening

Day 6: Lunchtime

Day 6: notice the eye slit starting to open! Gotta love the tufts of fluff on the top of the head.

Baby Robins

Karyn — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:42:36 +0000

We have a nest of robins in the Star Magnolia bush right by our front porch. I’ve been taking some photos (trying not to upset the mom too much). Usually just one per day. Three eggs hatched on Friday, the final egg was hatched on Saturday. On Sunday, you can see that the eye slits are starting to develop. Stay tuned!

The four eggs in the nest. This nest was re-used from last year. The "outer" nest was lined with some new material.

On Friday, April 27, we found that 3 of the eggs had hatched!

On Saturday, April 28th, the fourth (and final) egg hatched! You can see the difference in size. The last to hatch is at "7 o'clock" in the nest.

On day 3, you can see the eye slits developing.

Here you can see the back of the head, the back of the body, fluffy down, and where the feathers will emerge from.

Baby Bluebirds

Karyn — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:31:05 +0000

Baby Bluebirds. Isn’t that enough?

Baby bluebirds recently hatched in bluebird box at the Life and Science Museum in Durham, NC.

Live Scribing at TEDMED

Karyn — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:26:57 +0000

I love having the folks from Alphachimp here at TEDMED. They are leading the tribe of scribers who are documenting the TEDMED talks with visual flair. Check out their Flickr collection for the TEDMED sessions.

Here’s a sample:

Stay Curious is at TEDMED this week

Karyn — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:39:22 +0000

In my role as Executive Director of ScienceOnline, I’m attending the TEDMED conference in Washington DC this week.

What do ScienceOnline and TEDMED have in common? Well, for starters, there are quite a few TEDMED delegates who are members of the ScienceOnline community (including Bora, Anton, and Karyn). There are also several TEDMED speakers from our community, including Ivan Oransky, Diane Kelly, and Jonathan Eisen.

The next four days will be filled with inspiring talks, engaging conversations, and discussions about which of the 50 Great Challenges of health and medicine should be selected for the top 20 Challenges to focus on.

Back to what ScienceOnline and TEDMED have in common. Both are looking for new ideas and creative ways for communities to work together on problems. In order to do this, both need to cultivate an atmosphere of creativity and imagination. Innovation can only happen when imagination is fully engaged. To solve the Great Challenges that will be discussed at TEDMED, we need to think differently, think boldly, and take risks. We aren’t always used to doing that. Just as I encourage people to “stay curious” about the world around them, I will encourage people to cultivate their imagination.

So, my question for delegates will be “How do you exercise your imagination?”

I’ve got some imagination/creativity jumpstarters in my bag that I will share with folks to encourage folks to exercise their imagination with play and puzzles.

I’ll be live-tweeting with the #TEDMED hashtag and I’ll blog and post a photo-journal a little later. Follow me on Twitter @ktraphagen to be a virtual part of the action!

Noisy Jelly Chemistry Kit

Karyn — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 17:29:53 +0000

The science and design of this Noisy Jelly Chemistry Kit is exquisite.

Noisy Jelly Chemistry Kit

See (and hear!) the kit in action in this video.

NOISY JELLY from Raphaël Pluvinage on Vimeo.

Technical Details for Noisy Jelly. Click to embiggen.

Learn more by reading this PDF.

Learn more about Arduino.

LEGO Mindstorm Robots in the Research Lab

Karyn — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:31:53 +0000

What a great use of LEGO! You might think most research labs only use very expensive, high-tech equipment. However, this team of researchers working on developing artificial bones used a shoe-string solution to automating a tedious task by designing a LEGO Mindstorm NXT robot. Awesome.