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.
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.
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:
Posted Under: TEDMED
This post was written by Karyn on April 11, 2012 Comments Off
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!
Posted Under: ScienceOnline,TEDMED
This post was written by Karyn on April 10, 2012 Comments Off
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.
Posted Under: LEGO,Science & Math
This post was written by Karyn on March 20, 2012 Comments Off
Many thanks to Jen Scheer (@flyingjenny) for including me in the 2011 SpaceTweep Thanksgiving extravaganza (during the Mars Curiosity NASATweetup and launch), which is where this tshirt made its appearance.
Sherry Samuels and I recently visited the Carolina Alpaca Celebration to learn a bit about alpacas. Neither one of us really knew what to expect. We learned about their husbandry, their birthing needs, their food requirements, and just how many things you can make out of alpaca wool. I learned they are part of the camelid family (and yes, they can spit like camels and llamas, although I didn’t see one spit the whole day). But the best thing we learned is that THEY ARE DARN CUTE and THEY TALK TO YOU (well, sort of). In short, we like them. In fact, I even learned how to kiss an alpaca.
Isn't that an adorable face? We were surprised by the size of these camelids. They were smaller than we anticipated.
I told you I learned how to kiss an alpaca. This is "Overture" and he is one friendly alpaca.
This one looks like a hipster alpaca. There are two types of alpacas: Huacaya (wha-ky-a) and Suri. The Huacaya has the dense, fluffy fleece and the Suri has the dreadlocks look going on. Both types of fleece are extremely soft.
As soon as we walked into the building, we were greeted by the most surreal and sweet sound– an alpaca humming. They seem to talk to you, but in a quiet, hum.
A while ago, we were at Bald Head Island, NC and spent some time on the beach. I enjoy walking on the beach and looking for interesting shells, etc. Something unusual caught my attention this time. A moist, brown/grey lump, roughly oval, covered with sand.
I kept walking. Then I saw another, and another. Most people ignored them, or thought they were probably some kind of animal feces. I’m just too curious, and besides, I didn’t think it was fecal material (there were no flies). So, I picked one up. It had more weight to it than I thought by just looking at it. I broke it apart and saw uniform texture and what appeared to be clay inside the sandy coating. I started to gather these “clay” blobs… much to some other visitors’ stupefaction.
I’ve been poking around some geologists’ blogs and found this terrific post about a mystery rock. Diego wrote to Evelyn Mervine about a rock he had found. He wanted to know if she could tell him what kind of rock it is. The great thing about her response is the list of questions that she would ask of the rock.
Head over to Google+ and put Liz Krane in a circle. Or subscribe to her YouTube channel. Or put her blog in your RSS reader. I think this will be an interesting project to follow! After all, anyone who is curious about everything is a kindred spirit.
Posted Under: Pedagogy,Video
This post was written by Karyn on February 15, 2012 Comments Off
