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Life of Lego

Sean Kenney has a very interesting job. According to him, he’s a “professional kid”. He plays with Lego bricks—for a living.    

Actually, he doesn’t just play with the little square blocks everyone remembers from childhood. He designs. The massive sculptures he makes out of Lego bricks can contain thousands of pieces. Kenney has more than 1 million of the colorful pieces stored in his New York City loft. They are organized in countless drawers and bins according to color, size, style, function, and purpose. His office is filled with displays of his finished work—which are superglued for safety.

Kenney is building an empire out of Legos. His work has been featured everywhere from ELLE magazine to the hit TV show “30 Rock”. If you can think of it, he’s probably built it. From a Nintendo DSi that is taller than he is to a replica New York Yankees stadium that contains 45,000 pieces, he has built pretty much everything out of the plastic bricks. That is making companies notice. Google, Barnes and Noble, Borders, LPL Financial, and Good Morning America have all requested and received commissions to build giant Lego versions of their logos.

He also builds custom masterpieces on request. You can order two three-inch tall bride-and-groom wedding cake toppers—made to look like you—right off his website. You can also get Lego portraits, model cars, and even fully-functioning chairs. He builds by hand, too. Sean doesn’t use computer software or any technology to complete his craft.

Kenney is one of only nine “Lego Certified Professionals”. This elite title allows him to buy in the bulk sizes he needs and have access to pretty much anything he needs to build his amazing creations. To get that title, he had to take several tests and build several large-scale designs. Kenney isn’t associated or employed by the LEGO Company. His business of building art out of children’s toys has turned into a highly profitable and head-turning career. Check out his website at www.seankenney.com.

~By Maria Belding, Current Events student reporter

Photos: Copyright 2009 SeanKenney.com

Time to Eat the Doughnuts

Many great ideas were cooked up during the Great Depression. But one of the sweetest was making June 5 National Doughnut Day. What better thing to honor than a sweet ring of fried dough?

How should you celebrate? Head to your local bakery, of course. Get a free doughnut at participating Krispy Kremes. To get your sweet treat at Dunkin’ Donuts, you’ll need to buy a beverage. Wherever you go, don’t eat as many as Homer Simpson (D’oh! Nuts! Donuts). And please, don’t try to break John Haight’s world record. He downed 29 doughnuts in just over 6 minutes.

The delicious holiday traces its origins back to the battlefields of France during World War I (1914-1918). Female Salvation Army volunteers known as “lassies” served home-style treats to soldiers on the front lines. The brave gals whipped up thousands of doughnuts (or donuts) with dough from leftover flour, using wine bottles as rolling pins. Then, they fried up the fresh treats—often inside of the metal helmets of U.S. soldiers. That’s why U.S. infantrymen were commonly called doughboys.

Doughnut Day was officially established in 1938, by the Chicago Salvation Army to raise funds during the Great Depression, a worldwide economic crisis that lasted from 1929 until the 1940s. What better way to get people to donate money than by offering them free donuts?

OTHER FUN DONUT FACTS:

Doughnuts popped up in the 16th century in Holland. Some sources say the Dutch twisted their dough into knots, hence “dough knots. Others point out that they tended not to cook through in the very middle, so some makers would put nuts in the center, as in “dough-nuts”.

The doughnut hole appeared in the early 19^th century. Hanson Gregory, a sea captain from Maine, is said to have poked holes in his mother’s doughnuts because he didn’t like the soggy center.

Archaeologists have found petrified fried cakes with holes in them in ancient Native American ruins in the southwestern United States. So, doughnuts may have been around longer than we think!

In 1920, an immigrant from Russia named Adolph Levitt invented the first donut-making machine. This motto was printed on each box of doughnuts sold in his Mayflower coffee and donut shops: “As you ramble on through life, brother,/Whatever be your goal,/Keep your eye upon the doughnut,/And not upon the hole.”

Learn how to order a donut around the world! In Italy, it is called fritole. In France, it’s a beignet. In Mexico, say churro. In Germany, ask for a krapfen. In Turkey, call it a lokma. In India, balushai. In the Netherlands, have an oliebollen.

Photo: AP Images

Turtle TLC

In southern Florida, a young loggerhead sea turtle checked herself into the hospital—the Turtle Hospital. The Florida Keys-based Turtle Hospital is the only hospital in the world that only treats sea turtles. Ordinarily, boaters find sick turtles floating in the ocean and then bring them to the Turtle Hospital for treatment. This turtle, which was named Kincaid by staff, apparently didn't want to wait to be rescued and swam to the turtle ER herself. When first spotted in the harbor behind the hospital, the staff thought the turtle was just lost. But then she didn’t leave. The reptile appeared emaciated, and her shell was covered in barnacles, an indication that she was sick and needed some serious TLC—turtle loving care.

Kincaid turned out to have a bacterial blood infection called septic. She is being treated with antibiotics and is expected to make a full recovery. She’s lucky, considering the fact that the loggerhead turtle population is threatened by shrimp fishing, pollution, and habitat loss. Adult loggerheads weigh about 250 pounds. Some have even reached 1,000 pounds! Kincaid, who weighs 73 pounds, will be released back to the sea when she’s all better. Maybe she'll check herself out! 

~By Jacob Gill, Current Events student reporter

Photos: Ryan Butts/The Turtle Hospital

Houston, We Have a Comedian

When NASA built Node 3, a new module in the International Space Station, they never expected the naming process to turn into a firestorm. NASA decided to invite the public to vote online—and allow write-ins—for suggested names for the new room. Little did they know, the pseudo-conservative comedian Stephen Colbert would launch a campaign to name the pressurized module after himself. “I don’t know what it is, but I want it!,” Colbert said on his show. The room will store many of the station’s life support systems, including a new space toilet, and an observation deck. The top NASA suggestion was “Serenity.” “Serenity? That's not a space station, that’s an adult diaper,” Colbert joked. “Either name that node after me, or I too will reject democracy and seize power as space’s evil tyrant overlord.”

It seems America heard Colbert’s wish. By the time the poll closed on March 20, “Colbert” received 230,539 votes, clobbering “Serenity” by more than 40,000 votes! NASA was sent into a tailspin and had a dilemma on its hands: Should they take Stephen Colbert’s suggestion or stick with their name? Congress also put in its two cents, with Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-PA) urging NASA to accept the clear winner. “When Americans look to the sky, they may see ‘Serenity,’ but there will be no serenity here on Earth,” Fattah said. Despite all this lobbying on Colbert’s behalf, NASA was still hesitant to declare him the winner. (The contest rules said that NASA has the final say.) Some sources suggested that NASA would meet Colbert’s fans halfway by naming the space toilet after the comedian.

NASA astronaut Suni Williams appared on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” on April 14 to announce the winning name. She broke the bad news to Colbert that they will not be naming the Node 3 after him. The node will instead be called “Tranquility.” But, she assured him, his name will appear in space. A space treadmill will bear the name “COLBERT,” which stands for ‘Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill’. The treadmill is targeted to launch to the station in August. It will be installed in Tranquility after the node arrives at the station next year. Check out the newly-created patch that depicts the acronym and an illustration of the treadmill. And don’t feel too bad Colbert didn’t get the grand prize. He’s already had a new species of spider named after him. All I can say is “shoot for the moon,” Stephen Colbert!

~By Larissa von Nyssen, Current Events student reporter

Photos: AP Images

Great Ape Blows Zoo Away

In the Walt Disney movie The Jungle Book, the orangutan King Louie sings a song called “I Wan’na Be Like You.” It’s all about how he wants to be like the humans. It goes: “Oh, oobee doo, I wanna be like you, I wanna walk like you, talk like you, too, you'll see it’s true, an ape like me can learn to be human, too …”

It seems the Jungle King has gotten one step closer to his wish: Bonnie, a brainy 32-year-old orangutan from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., made the news when she taught herself how to whistle!

What makes this so unique is the fact that no one ever taught Bonnie to whistle. “I don’t whistle, but someone at some point in life, whistled while they worked and she just learned how to do it on her own,” the zoo’s Great Ape keeper Erin Stromberg told WJLA-TV. Bonnie doesn't whistle for food or attention; she just does it when she feels like it. 

The fact that Bonnie can imitate sounds made by others nixes the idea that orangutans have only a set number of sounds they make as involuntary responses. “Sounds aren’t necessarily all genetic and they can be behavioral or ecological, and also voluntary,” said Stromberg. Bonnie’s spontaneous ability shows that some apes can learn sounds from another species. The finding, recently published in the journal Primates, could give new insight into how speech itself actually evolved.

Orangutans are known to ape humans. Bonnie is very observant and copies her caretakers. She sometimes sweeps up after herself and washes the windows (but she doesn’t whistle while she works). She even chooses to walk on two feet like her human counterparts.

I think this just goes to show how much we have yet to learn about all the amazing animals that share our world. Who knows? We may someday be asking our pets what they want for dinner, and they may just answer us!

Hear Bonnie whistle here.

~By Larissa von Nyssen, Current Events student reporter

Photos: Bonnie, left, with friend Kiko at the National Zoo (AP Images/Gerald Herbert); Bonnie (Jessie Cohen/Smithsonian’s National Zoo)

Joey Joey! Rare Twin 'Roos Born in Zoo

Milla and Noru are the proud parents of twins—two tiny Matschie's tree kangaroos. They were born at the Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Nebraska last month. Zookeepers were hopping with excitement over the births of the two joeys. Any births are rare among zoo ‘roos—and twin births are extremely unusual among tree kangaroos. The only documented case of twins to any tree kangaroo occurred at the San Diego Zoo to a Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo in 1994.

After the twins were born, Milla carefully licked a path on the fur across her belly to guide the twins into the pouch. The tiny marsupials, each the size of a peanut, crawled on their own up her belly and into her pouch. They are expected to peek their heads or feet out in May. In a few months, the mother’s pouch will be too small for both ‘roos to fit comfortably, so zoo staff is preparing a special nursery so a zoo handler can provide round the clock care and feedings to one of the joeys.

“We are so committed to the wellbeing of this endangered animal that if the joey is in need of hand rearing, we will have one of our fulltime zookeepers take on that responsibility so that we can provide expert care to ensure the survival of this amazing animal,” said the zoo’s president and CEO John Chapo. In the wild, this threatened species lives in the rain forest in northeastern Papua New Guinea.

Photo: Milla, a Matschie’s tree kangaroo, at Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Nebraska. The twins are in her pouch. (AP Images/Lincoln Children’s Zoo)

Tourists Light Up New Year's Eve Ball

When the crystal ball drops on New Year's Eve in New York's Times Square, you can thank Ne-Yo, Gieselle Bundchen and more than 100,000 tourists for the light show. That's how many people put their legs to work pedaling stationary bikes to generate enough electricity to light up the ball (above, being prepped for the big night). All together, they put in 230 hours of pedaling. The rapper Ne-Yo, model Giselle, and other celebrities added their leg work and star power to the project.

Imagine how much energy you could save if your gym classes rode bikes to power the school! It isn't as hard as it sounds. A British college student has been winning awards for his invention of a see-saw that uses kid-power to generate electricity for schools in Africa. He calls his company PlayMade Energy -- a fitting name, since playing makes power!

Photo: The Associated Press

*How can you and your classmates help save (or create) energy? Does your school do anything special to create power? Tell us by clicking on "Comments" below!

Decade of Discovery: 1,000 New Species

Do you think daddy-longlegs spiders are icky? How about a spider the size of your dinner plate? Scientists have discovered the world’s largest huntsman spider (with 12-inch-long legs, that’s one creepy crawler!) The spider is one of more than 1,000 new species discovered this past decade in Southeast Asia’s greater Mekong region (in photos)—an area the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) calls a biological treasure trove.

The newly discovered critters include a shockingly hot-pink, poison-producing dragon millipede, two types of deer, and black-and-brown striped rabbits. Most were found in the rainforests and wetlands along the Mekong River in Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and China.

Not all of these previously unknown creatures were hiding in remote jungles, though. The Laotian rock rat, thought to be extinct about 11 million years ago, was discovered being served roasted on a skewer in a local food market in 2005. One slinky species, the Siamese Peninsula pit viper, was hanging out in the rafters of a restaurant.

"It doesn’t get any better than this," says Stuart Chapman, director of WWF’s Greater Mekong Programme. "We thought discoveries of this scale were confined to the history books." The WWF is calling for agreement between countries in the region to protect the area, since human activities put many species at risk.

The new-found species include 519 plants, 279 fish, 88 frogs, 88 spiders, 46 lizards, 22 snakes, 15 mammals, four birds, four turtles, two salamanders and a toad—an average of two new species a week for the past 10 years.

Photos: The Associated Press

*If you could discover a new species, what kind of animal would you want it to be? Why? Tell us by clicking on "Comments" below!

Give Me a Break! Go Wash Your Hands

Are your friends or parents a little too judgmental sometimes? Try this next time you feel an argument coming on: Having them wash their hands! Believe it or not, a simple hand washing could make them cut you a little slack. A new study found that a person who feels physically clean is less critical. Really!

In the study, psychologist Simone Schnall had students watch a disturbing movie scene to make them feel disgusted. Then, half those students washed their hands. When they were done, all the students were given a little quiz. They were asked to rate a series of moral dilemmas, like keeping money found inside a lost wallet, on a range from “perfectly OK” to “extremely wrong.” The hand-washers rated the same moral stories less severely than those who didn’t wash. It might sound like a stretch, but the researchers say the results show  people are subconsciously influenced by how physically clean they feel. Other studies have found a link between physical warmth, like holding a cup of hot chocolate, and feelings of kindness.

The lesson: Next time you get in trouble with your parents, offer them a little soap and water before arguing!

Photo: The Associated Press

*Do you think it's true that washing up can make a person less critical? Have you ever noticed a link between being physically warm and feeling kinder? Let us know by clicking on "Comments" below!

Be Happy! It's Contagious

There’s something going around, and you can catch it from your friends.

What is it? Happiness!

Scientists at Harvard University recently did a study and determined that happiness is contagious—it spreads through families and social networks of friends. Having happy friends, happy siblings, and happy next-door neighbors can make you happier, the scientists say. Even friends of friends have an effect, like a chain reaction.

The scientists used 20 years worth of interviews involving thousands of people and those people’s relatives and friends. The results: They found that having a happy friend makes you 15 percent more likely to be happy. If a friend of a friend is happy, then you’re 10 percent more likely to be happy. There's even a small happiness effect if you have a friend of a friend of a friend who's happy, even if that person is a total stranger to you.

“Happy people tend to be located in the center of their local social networks,” the scientists say. They spread their happiness.

So smile. You never know who might catch your happiness!

Photos: The Associated Press