Small Wonders: Dec. 17, 2010

In this week’s edition: a baby has an MRI while being born, a hobbit-eating stork, and a connection between mercury and homosexual behavior.

* It got more than a million views in five days, so you may have seen this already, but if you’ve missed the Antikythera Mechanism made of Legos, get thee to YouTube. Or watch it below:

* A woman gives birth in MRI machine, leading to first brain scan of a child as its being born.

* Ed Yong writes about a remarkable woman unable to experience fear.

* Baseball players seem to be getting ADD diagnoses so they can take Adderall.

* Scientists unearth an enormous stork capable of eating hobbits. For real.

* Some other strange things recently unearthed: a 2,400-year-old bowl of soup and the embalmed head of France’s King Henri IV.

* Bulls are for sissies. Try running with the bees.

* I fear that this interesting study–mercury poisoning makes birds gay!–will be co-opted for political purposes.

* When and how psychology data is collected influences the kinds of students who volunteer.

* Scientists find evidence of prehistoric board games.

* I don’t know how I missed this story, but the Chilean earthquake was so strong that it shifted Earth’s axis and shortened the length of the day.

* Fish have feelings, too.

The Small Wonders: Dec. 17, 2010 by Wonderland, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.