As a twelve-year-old, I was a terror to my dad's garage. I would constantly swipe an item or two for little 'projects'... a wooden dowel rod, a roll of electrical tape, a hammer and nails, and, oh, the balls of string. The silly contraptions I could entangle the living room and my bedroom dresser and my brother's leg with nothing but string. The neighborhood kids would come over and we'd take a commanding view from the picnic table to see our latest contraption drop a marble through a maze of blocks, knock over a hundred dominos, whiz another marble down a plastic chute, and land squarely in a bucket two feet away...

All that to say: kids are fascinated with building things. Just give them a balloon, some glue and an old soda bottle, and they're set. Well, the guys who never quite grew up (they're called MIT grad students) have come up for instructions to build all kinds of stuff in a hip new way (almost as good as old Lego idea books).

It's called Howtoons. Illustrated episodes for making a shockwave air cannon and a easy-to-make version of air hockey. Plus you can watch videos of these ideas in action! Way cool. They're looking to syndicate... coming to a Sunday morning insert near you!

You're watching Everybody Loves Raymond and about to run get your microwave dinner that's beeping in the kitchen when a new commercial with a catchy tune comes on. You stand transfixed for 30 seconds. And on your way back with the mac and cheese you ponder: wonder if I can get that song on CD or mp3?

Change the channel to Adtunes and get the scoop behind the song. This girlfriend-boyfriend team surrounds each Adtunes entry with some details about the latest commercials, the featured music (or who did the song cover), and the handy link to Amazon. Now you'll finally know that Goldfrapp's "Strict Machine" is the song featured in the new Nintendo GameBoy commercial.

Can't find it there? Songtitle.info is a full database of recent North American commercial broadcasts and the associated songs and artists. Perhaps you're looking for more of an international flair? Try Ben's Music (granted it's in Dutch...) and Commercial Breaks and Beats from the UK.

"Okay, a mollusk walks up to this sea cucumber and the sea cucumber turns to the mollusk and says, 'With fronds like these, who needs anemones?'"
—Finding Nemo

When it comes to making science engaging for kids, the American Museum of Natural History likes to tackle the tough stuff. Astrophysics. Genetic manipulation. Species differentiation. Dinosaur cladistics. And recently, bioluminescence in OLogy's (Marine Biology: The Living Oceans). Most of our features in this kid's site are more informative through articles and narrative (that often comes directly out of the Museum's kids magazines). But we try to keep things light by adding little gems (Glowing in the Ocean) into the mix.

This is an anglerfish, an incredible deep-sea creature with the intent to get lunch. Just like you would out on the river or lakeside, this extraordinary fisherman lures other animals with its glowing antenna looking like a scrumptious bit of food. On a side note, anglerfish also have a very curious sex life (but that's clearly another story). Fortunately when I was working on this animation, the new Finding Nemo trailer had just been released ("The Light"). And both in form and movement, the brief cameo with the scary anglerfish proved very useful (not to mention, it turned out, fairly scientifically accurate). Initial designs were clunky, so some four drafts later, this version proved (along with the not-to-tiny task of the tiny fish feast) the smoothest faux-underwater work I've done to date.

What are the other functions of bioluminescence, you say? (Glad you asked.)