All Parents With Preschool Aged Children Should Check Out This New Television Show

Based on the books by Jim and Kate McMullan, The Stinky and Dirty Show describes the adventures of two best friends who become unlikely heroes. Stinky is a garbage truck and his new friend Dirty is a backhoe loader, who have to put their heads together to solve a big mess that they have accidentally caused. Learning what to do when things do not go as expected can be a tough lesson, but when the two friends think creatively and practice being resourceful, even the messiest problem gets resolved! The new show has been rated 5 out of 5 stars on Amazon Prime and an 8.8 out of 10 on IMDb. The characters are voiced by Ethan Wacker, who plays Stinky, and Jacob Guenther, playing Dirty. 

This show, which aired January 15th shows huge promise after just the first episode. Made for preschool aged children, it utilizes fun and humor to teach some very important lessons about teamwork and fixing mistakes. After accidentally causing quite a mess, the two new friends get creative and resourceful to fix their mistake. The cute and funny show demonstrates problem solving skills and using what you already have (which in Dirty and Stinky’s case was “trash”) to get something done and save the day!

Click the video below to watch a sneak peek of the show:

Click here to watch the full episode on Amazon Prime 

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Researchers Create an Adorable Chick Rover to Observe Emperor Penguins in Their Natural Habitat

Emperor penguins are notoriously shy creatures, which poses a problem to the scientists trying to research the health and behavior of these birds. Whenever any of the researchers would come near the penguins they would become quite fearful and back away, causing rapid heart rates and other fear-induced responses. This makes it very difficult for any person trying to record resting heart rates and other “penguin parameters.” Another fear of many researchers is that penguins’ wariness of people causes them to change their behaviors when being observed, thus preventing researchers from being able to record normal penguin behaviors in their natural settings, affecting the accuracy of the studies. So how can researchers observe the penguin behaviors without being present?

Yyvon Le Maho of the University of Strasbourg in France came up with a solution to create a small rover disguised as a penguin.

 

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The initial rover; made up of fiberglass, scared the penguins and proved to be unsuccessful. After five tries, researchers have come up with a rover that successfully interacts with and observes the penguins without scaring them or causing changes in their typical behavior. And I must say, resembling a real baby chick with gray fur, black arms and a little black beak, this rover is pretty cute!

 

Not only did the penguins not react fearfully to the little rover, they actually interacted with it like a real penguin, singing it special songs and including the rover in their huddles. After observing disappointment in the penguins when the rover did not sing back, Le Maho says they plan to create the next rover with the ability to sing songs.

 

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