MIT researchers outfitted a baby diaper with an RFID tag that emits a wireless signal when the surrounding material gets wet. The wetness "sensor" is actually a type of hydrogel that's commonly found in diapers to absorb liquid. As the hydrogel gets wet, it swells and its conductivity increases, triggering the RFID tag. The RFID tags are printed as stickers for around 2 cents each compared to other Internet-connected diapers in development with reusable sensors that cost as much as $40/each. From MIT News:

Over time, smart diapers may help record and identify certain health problems, such as signs of constipation or incontinence. The new sensor may be especially useful for nurses working in neonatal units and caring for multiple babies at a time...

(MIT AutoID Lab researcher Pankhuri Sen) envisions that an RFID reader connected to the internet could be placed in a baby’s room to detect wet diapers, at which point it could send a notification to a caregiver’s phone or computer that a change is needed. For geriatric patients who might also benefit from smart diapers, she says small RFID readers may even be attached to assistive devices, such as canes and wheelchairs to pick up a tag’s signals.

image: MIT News (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) Read the rest

Seung Lee double knit this blanket based on data about his son's sleep patterns during his first year of life.

"Each stitch represents 6 minutes of time spent awake or asleep," Lee tweeted.

The blanket is 42" x 45," contains approximately 185,000 stitches and took around 300 hours to make. From Twitter:

The original plan was to crochet the entire blanket but I switched to double knitting because the data was much more clearly visualized and the color changes (of which there were literally thousands) were significantly easier..

The sleep data was collected with the BabyConnect app which lets you export to CSV. The CSVs were filtered and converted into JSON (using Google Apps Script and Python) which could then be used for visualization and tracking...

I built a tool in HTML/JavaScript so I could position stitch markers for the color changes and track overall progress. I made it browser based so I could pull it up on any device wherever I was...

(via Kottke) Read the rest

YouTuber and dad Matt MacMillan picked an unusual way to cover AC/DC's "Thunderstruck." He spent a year recording his baby son's cooing, sneezing, and other random noises and pieced it together to make the song. He writes, "It took forever."

And when you see HOW he arranged it all, you'll see why it took so long — it's really quite a feat!

If you're not familiar with the original song (I wasn't), here it is for comparison:

(Geekologie) Read the rest

Hold on to your cute little butts there, babies, we're about to go through an automated mechanical car wash. Read the rest

That right there's an #irishsetter #babysitter. Read the rest

Megan Mattiuzzo, a professional wedding photographer, had a baby last month. She wanted to document the wonder of her child's birth and she knew that if you want something done right, you do it yourself.

“I’m used to capturing moments that you can’t retake,” Mattiuzzo tells PetaPixel. “So when I found out I was pregnant, I knew that I wanted to capture my son’s first breath, first moments, seeing his face for the first time...

“Due to a failed epidural that was not 100% effective, I was able to feel the right side of my body and a spot on my left abdomen,” Mattiuzzo says. “When it was time to start pushing, my husband [Ryan]’s job was to hand [the camera] to me when it was time for the last push...

“I took the camera and tucked my chin to my chest, rested the camera on my stomach, pulled my head to the viewfinder, and started pushing,” she says. “I then saw a moment I will never forget… my son’s hair… then his head… then his body… all while shooting. It was the most amazing moment of my life.”

More at PetaPixel: "This Photographer Shot Her Own Childbirth"

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Baby Ryan doing manly things. Yes, please. Read the rest

This baby set a hospital weight record at birth. Of course it happened in Texas. Read the rest

What the hell is this? Well, it's "Babies With Teeth." Read the rest

Each year, Baby Center polls parents to find out what they named their newborn. In 2018, more than 742,000 parents answered.

Based on that data, here are the top baby names for 2018.

Girls:

1. Sophia 2. Olivia 3. Emma 4. Ava 5. Isabella 6. Aria 7. Riley 8. Amelia 9. Mia 10. Layla

Boys:

1. Jackson 2. Liam 3. Noah 4. Aiden 5. Caden 6. Grayson 7. Lucas 8. Mason 9. Oliver 10. Elijah

Sophia celebrates her ninth consecutive year as the top choice for girls, while Jackson remains the most popular name for boys for six years running. Oliver and Layla both jumped into the top 10, pushing out Logan and Zoe. The fastest climbers of 2018 include Everly, Isla, Leo, and Carson.

These are the top ten, head to Baby Center to see all 100 top baby names for 2018. If you click on a name, you can discover its popularity over the years (data FTW!). Baby Center also offers predictions of future trends in baby names (inc. sneakers, gender-swaps, and Southern states), as well as alternatives to popular names.

Previously: Heather used to be a popular baby name

(Neatorama)

image via Classic Film Read the rest

As one of the most important words in any language, having a baby utter "taco" as their first word is a massive parental victory. Read the rest

Mitochindrial replacement techniques, which produce "three-parent babies," promise to allow infertile couples to have babies, and even allow people with debilitating genetic disorders to have healthy babies. The largely unregulated tech is already producing babies despite the unknown long-term risks. Read the rest

Jordan Watson, the New Zealand-based father-of-three behind "How to Dad," demonstrates how to rock a baby to sleep in his latest video. It's cute.

In my personal experience, the "Invisible Trampoline" is the most effective for knocking newborns out but then again I've never tried waltzing.

(This one goes out to my brother and his family who just welcomed my nephew Benjamin to the world!)

(Likecool) Read the rest

Purdue University researchers built this bizarre crawling robot baby to study how real infants kick up dirt and bacteria from carpet that they then inhale. Engineer Brandon Boor and his colleagues ran the robot over carpet samples removed from people's homes and then analyzed the particulates that were stirred up. Turns out that the particle concentration is as much as 20 times greater than higher up in the room where we adults breathe. That isn't necessarily bad though, Boor says.

"Many studies have shown that inhalation exposure to microbes and allergen-carrying particles in that portion of life plays a significant role in both the development of, and protection from, asthma and allergic diseases," says Boor, an assistant professor of civil engineering and environmental and ecological engineering. "There are studies that have shown that being exposed to a high diversity and concentration of biological materials may reduce the prevalence of asthma and allergies later in life."

(Purdue University)

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Donald Trump, President of the United States, is apparently rewriting the laws of human biology and procreation now. Yep, he really said this. Read the rest

As the father of a five-month old baby and the owner of a copy of Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition, this has been the funniest 11 seconds of 2017. Read the rest