Tub Toys As Climate Change Fighting Tool?

JeanneSager — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:58:00 GMT

The rubber duckie's been getting the short end of the stick for too long. The standby of baby baths everywhere has been set aside for foaming wall art and over-the-top submarines that dive deep below the bubbles. But it's still good enough for NASA.

Scientists studying the effects of rising temperatures on the Greenland ice caps have released ninety of the cute chubby little fellas (if you don't get the reference brush up on your Sesame Street, pronto) into the water melting from the the Jakobshavn Isbrae, the largest of the country's two hundred ice caps. Dr. Alberto Behar, lead researcher on the University of Colorado project and a robotics expert for NASA, told the Wall Street Journal the ducks were the only device cheap enough to fit the parameters of his limited funding and yet strudy enough to survive subzero temperatures, the pressure of the mile-thick ice and water current so furious they sometimes exceed the rate of water flowing over Niagra Falls.

Printed with an e-mail address and the offer of a reward (printed in three languages, just in case), the ducks are expected to one day end up thirty miles downstream giving Behar and his team a sense of how the temperatures are affecting the melting caps.

Kind of gives you a new perspective on that moldy yellow blob in the tub, doesn't it?

Image: Wall Street Journal

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NASA Baffled, Kid Still Sleeping: Mom Sees Space Station on Video Baby Monitor

Jessica Ashley (Sassafrass) — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:27:00 GMT

In a feat far better than the rumors of parents over-hearing mob deals go down and indiscretions being discussed by neighbors over their baby monitors, a new mother recently got great shots of the space station on the video monitor that was supposed to be focused on her 3-1/2-month old son Jack.

Natalie Meilinger of suburban Chicago was understandably confused when she tuned in, probably expecting to see sweet baby Jack wriggling out of his swaddle blanket or groping around for his paci, and instead saw the shuttle Atlantis docked at (where else?) the International Space Station. The mother says people thought she was crazy when she tried to discuss it with friends, contact the manufacturer and even report it to police. NASA -- an organization, let us be reminded, of very smart people responsible for sending large vehicles full of more very smart people to discover stuff and build technology in space -- can't figure out why the family's monitor is tuned into their station.

In the meantime, these new parents have probably totally forgotten a miracle of human life is cooing in his crib since they've viewed astronauts on a space walk, the planet and mission control on their tiny monitor screen. Whatever is "wrong," I hope it doesn't get fixed. I am totally jealous of the non-drooling entertainment they're getting for their monitor upgrade. And I consider my one late-night eavesdropping session -- the one where my neighbor checked on the totals and put in the passwords for all of her bank accounts that was broadcast over all three of our monitors -- to be officially topped.

[photo credit: Paul Beaty/AP]

Strollerderby : NASA

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