Why children are so cute

Cute Child:Source-Wikipedia

 (ringing) - Hi, it's infoweb So, I saw this video on the internet where they had this stuffedanimal and I got one, because I wanna show you something. You look at this andyou go, oh, it's cute. It's adorable, right? But watch. (laughs) When you squeeze the back of the head, now it doesn't look socute anymore, does it? This is actually really interesting, because it shows us howan animal's different facial expressions really changehow we react to something. Now it's cute, now it's not so cute. Someone named Tanya has a question about animals looking cute. Let's give her a call now. (ringing) - Hi Doug. - Hi Tanya. - I have a question for you. Why do baby animals look so cute? - Oh, that's a great question. People seem to love baby animals. And I don't mean just puppies,all kinds of baby animals, like people find kittens adorable. And baby bunnies. Even animals like baby ducks. Now, it's not that people don't like the adult versions of these animals, but just that people seem to find baby animals especially cute or adorable. There seems to be aspecial kind of reaction that we have to seeing a baby animal. Baby animals make us feel warm and fuzzy, like we just want to cuddle and hug them. Have you ever though about why? Why do so many people findbaby animals adorable? There was actually ascientist named Konrad Lorenz, who wanted to figure outthe answer to this question. In order to do that, he decided to look at all the different kinds of baby animals that people find adorable to see if he could spot a pattern, some things that they all have in common. Now take a close look. Do you see any features thesebaby animals have in common? Now would be a good time topause the video and discuss. Okay, you ready? Well, maybe you notice some of the same things thatKonrad Lorenz noticed. He found a pattern. Baby animals often have large eyes compared to their heads. They also have a large headcompared to their body. Their bodies are often round and little and they have short, stubby legs. Now you might have noticedthose short legs before, like when baby animals try to walk, they're a little bit clumsy. They teeter from side to side. That's something thatpeople find adorable too. These baby features arewhat make baby animals look different fromgrown up, adult animals. For example, here's a dog. A labrador retriever asa puppy and as an adult. Now if you compare them side by side you can see that theadult has a larger body with a smaller head incomparison to its body. It also has longer legs. And you might notice thatits nose sticks out more. Overall, a puppy looks much more round. Now look at all these baby animals. Notice how you can see this pattern with almost any baby animal. But why do these baby features make us go, aw, and want to cuddle them? It's funny, but we seemto have this reaction without even thinking about it. It's automatic. When we see a baby animal, wewanna pick it up and hold it, we wanna keep it safe and cuddle it. An automatic reaction likethis is called an instinct. An instinct is something youdo without even thinking. Like whenever we eat something that tastes really sour, we all do this. Watch. We pucker our lips. Ooh, it's an automatic reaction. The scientist, Konrad Lorenz, thought that that reaction that wehave toward animal babies where we go aw, cute,and we wanna cuddle them, that that might come from an instinct we have toward human babies. Think about it. We pick them up, we hold them, we talk to them, we keep them safe. Human babies have thatsame pattern of features, large eyes in comparisonto the size of the head, a large head on top of a round body, with short legs and arms. And, look at how wewalk when we're babies. Just like baby animals,we're all a bit clumsy. It's adorable. Konrad Lorenz thoughtthat maybe the reason people find baby animals so adorable is because they remind us of baby humans. They share some of the same features that we have when we're babies. And what's more, it's not just babies that look adorable with these features. You could make justabout anything look cute if you give it baby-like features. Even something like acartoon version of a shark, now that's usually not an animal people think of as being adorable. But if you were to draw one with more baby-lifefeatures, check it out. Now it has a rounded body, a big head compared to its body, and big eyes compared to its head. It looks adorable. Artists who draw cartoons often do this with their characters in order to make them seem more adorable to us. You can experiment to make a drawing seem more baby-like or adorable. There's a website from a science museum called the Exploratorium, where you can give an object a rounder, more baby-like look. I'll included a link to itat the end of this video. So in summary, baby animalsthat we find adorable all seem to share features in common. They all have featuressimilar to baby humans. Scientists think that the reason we react with aw and want to cuddle things that look like babies is that it might be an instinct to take care of babies, something that happens automatically. Even things that aren't alive, like cartoons and cars,we can find adorable when they have featuresthat remind us of babies. That's all for this week's question. Thanks Tanya for asking it. Now, for the next episode, Ireached into my question jar and found three questions submitted to me that I'm thinking about answering. When this video is done playing, you'll get to vote on one. You can choose from, has anybody ever beenout of the solar system? Why do penguins havewings if they can't fly? Or, how is gold made? So submit your vote when the video's over. I wanna hear from all of you watching. There are mysteries all around us. Stay curious and see you next week.