The urge to make a baby laugh, and the joy we get from it, is no accident. It's a adaptation that makes us rear children in a way that helps them develop the skills they need. At only a few months old, babies laugh when you play peekaboo because they are learning about object permanence. Their laugh is reinforced when you keep doing this pleasurable activity, so they learn to laugh at what they enjoy. But their brains are also forming important concepts. They will continue to laugh at peekaboo for years, but the game later grows into more complicated forms of play that also expand their brains' understanding of the world. This TED-Ed lesson doesn't really go into that pleasurable feedback loop, but spending a weekend with my grandchildren drove it home for me.
Monday, May 04, 2026
Peekaboo!
Miss Cellania's Links
The Ethiopian running secret. One school of training is highly personalised, technical and data-driven. The other is the one that wins marathons. (via Nag on the Lake)
Report Details Trump Effort to Quietly Lay Groundwork to ‘Steal Future Elections.’ (via Metafilter)
Bird’s Nest Fungi: Tiny Nests, Big Trick.
A Trio of Adorable New York City Cats Travel the World in Their Finest Attire.
A perfect little buffet for feathered guests. (via Everlasting Blort)
12,000-Year-Old Discovery at Karahan Tepe, “the World’s First Village,” Reveals an Ancient Key to Human Survival. (via Strange Company)
Engine noises. Turn the sound on.
People Shared The Funniest Animal Photos From Their Countries, Much To Everyone’s Delight.
Princess Leia's Stolen Death Star Plans
I found some serious catnip that will be playing all evening long while I work. It's a mashup of the Beatles and Star Wars. To be specific, the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is used to tell the saga of Luke, Leia, Han, and the droids as they battle Darth Vader and the Empire. Dan Amrich and Jude Kelley of Palette-Swap Ninja redid the entire Sgt. Pepper album in Star Wars lyrics. You can hear the whole thing in this playlist. If you don't listen to anything else from the album, you've got to hear the last track, "Reprise/A Day in the Life of Red Five." (via Metafilter)
Feelings
— Jymbo (Smurfmaster from the place that shall not be named) (@smurfmasterjym.bsky.social) April 30, 2026 at 1:44 AM
Sunday, May 03, 2026
Ducks
The award-winning animated short film Ducks starts out cute with a baby observing a normal day in the park, and gets cuter- for a little while. And then nightmare fuel starts creeping in. Don't let that stop you; there's no real horror here, just a throwback to the bizarre cartoons of the early internet. The first thing we learn is that not all ducks are the same. They can vary in surprising ways. They don't appear to be completely nefarious, but you get a sneaking suspicion that they could be. This film is by AJ Jeffries, who has an extensive catalog of cartoons you might want to check out.
Family of Cougars Caught on Camera
This trail cam footage shows a mother cougar with three half-grown cubs visiting a stash of deer meat. And purring and squeaking. They look healthy and well-fed. But the surprise is where this happened. It was near Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota! We think of cougars as residents of the American West, but they once roamed the entire country. Over the last couple of decades, there have been some sightings in Minnesota, mostly on trail cams, of solitary cougars, but this sighting is the first of cubs in Minnesota in more than a century.
When an electronically-tagged deer died in March, it was found covered in leaves, raising suspicions that a cougar may have killed it. Researchers planted cameras near the carcass, hoping that the cats would return to feast again. They were surprised to see four cougars return to the site, meaning that cougars are once again reproducing in Minnesota instead of just passing through. Read more about this discovery at MPR. (via Metafilter)
Press Conference
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and FBI Director Kash Patel answer questions from the press in the opening skit from last night's Saturday Night Live. Alcohol may have been involved.
Why Everyone Should Have a Cat
Simon Tofield of Simon's cat has a guest star- Anna Akana tells of the many reasons you should consider having your own cat.
Population Distribution
I looked at this and said, India doesn't have two billion people! India has 1.4 billion, but this map includes Pakistan, Bangladesh, and a couple other countries in that quadrant.The world divided into 4 equal parts [🗾 justforstev24] Original post
— Massimo (mirror) (@rainmaker1973-m.bsky.social) April 30, 2026 at 6:06 AM
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Saturday, May 02, 2026
Kronos
The 1957 film Kronos was also marketed as Kronos, Destroyer of the Universe and Kronos, Ravager of Planets. It was made in two weeks on a budget of $130,000. Kronos is an alien robot that comes to earth to steal energy, so it attacks power plants, after stealing the mind of a scientist. The more energy the robot gathers, the larger it gets. The special effects were fairly good for its time, and the subject of limited energy supplies was prescient. WTM says it might be the first movie he ever watched. This colorized version is only 1:16:35 long; after that, it's someone's home movie, as if this was ripped from a VHS tape. (Thanks, WTM!)
James Bond 003 (years old)
This guy makes movies with his three-year-old son. Here, the child is Bond, James Bond. (via reddit)
Royal Inbreeding
Somewhere along the lines, a long time ago, ruling families got the idea that their blood was better than everyone else's, so they wanted keep reproduction in the family, so to speak. This was also a convenient way to keep inherited wealth from being divided. But inbreeding will catch up with you sooner or later, as more and more harmful genes get doubled up. The case we are most familiar with is that of Charles II of Spain, whose family tree was not only a wreath, but even more like an Euler diagram.
But he was far from the only victim of royal inbreeding. It's been pretty common in Europe. Loony Throne takes us through ten royals in which inbreeding made a lasting mark on history.