Married same-sex couples have the same rights as married heterosexuals to have both parents listed on the birth certificates of their newborn children, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled this morning.

Justices ruled 6-0 to require that the Iowa Department of Public Health begin listing both married parents on a newborn child’s birth certificate, despite state concerns that biological-based parenting rights would be cast aside if a Des Moines lesbian was allowed to establish paternity of her child.

The opinion, authored by Justice David Wiggins, brushes aside state government arguments that Iowa’s interest in “the accuracy of birth certificates, the efficiency and effectiveness of government administration, and the determination of paternity” require that the state hue to biological definitions in recording a child’s parentage.

Iowa currently keeps no records of biological parentage in cases where heterosexual couples use anonymous sperm donors, the court reasons. And state records would not be more accurate by requiring, as Iowa health officials until now have insisted, that nonbirthing mothers go through an adoption process.

“It is important for our laws to recognize that married lesbian couples who have children enjoy the same benefits and burdens as married opposite-sex couples who have children,” the opinion says. “By naming the nonbirthing spouse on the birth certificate of a married lesbian couple’s child, the child is ensured support from that parent and the parent establishes fundamental legal rights at the moment of birth. Therefore, the only explanation for not listing the nonbirthing lesbian spouse on the birth certificate is stereotype or prejudice.

“The exclusion of the nonbirthing spouse on the birth certificate of a child born to a married lesbian couple is not substantially related to the objective of establishing parentage.”

Today’s ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by Melissa and Heather Gartner after the state refused in 2009 to list both of their names on the birth certificate of their daughter, Mackenzie. The baby had been carried by Heather and conceived via an anonymous sperm donor.

Polk County District Judge Eliza Ovrom ruled in the couple’s favor in January 2012, finding that the state had failed to properly follow the 2009 court case that legalized same-sex marriage in Iowa.

Iowa law long has held that if a woman is married, the husband must be legally deemed the father unless there’s a court order that says otherwise.

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Dad Cracks Zelda Game, Turns Daughter Into Hero

When Mike Hoye set out to make the game Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker more gender-friendly for his 3-year-old daughter (she pronounces it gender “fwee”), he was doing it primarily out of parental love. But when the former system administrator released a crack for the game that reverses the genders of the characters—making Link the heroine and Zelda the guy she rescues—he struck a chord with gamers across the Internet. 

Since Hoye wasn’t about to teach his daughter that she couldn’t be the hero in her own story unless she related to a man, he devised a special crack to reverse all the gender pronouns and other references to Link’s gender in the story. Once the crack was done—he told the Dot it took only “a few days of work, spread out over a couple of weeks”—he shared the results.

“As you might imagine I’m not having my daughter growing up thinking girls don’t get to be the hero and rescue their little brothers,” he blogged on Wednesday. Hoye also made sure that the references matched up tonally, too: When one commenter suggested Hoye replace “lad” with “gal,” he responded succinctly, “‘Gal’ is not something you call the resurrected Hero Of Time.”

Daily Dot: Based on the response from readers, would you consider turning this into a project for more than just games for your daughter? Obviously you’ve highlighted a huge and basic gender inequality issue at work.

I’d certainly consider it. The approach I’ve taken isn’t particularly user-friendly, though, and I don’t know how it could be made much more user-friendly without getting hung up on some of the sharp, rusty edges of modern copyright laws. If this turns into a thing that other people start doing, though, and if the “small patch to the dialog” route I’m taking seems to work for whatever community emerges, then I’d love to contribute to and support that effort.

DD: There’s so much tension right now in the gaming community over issues of sexism that it seems like such a project could be a really touchy subject.

It’s only a touchy subject with people who think the status quo is OK. And since those people are clearly, obviously wrong, I’m not all that worried about whether or not they’re comfortable with it.

Read more from the most awesome dad on the planet at the Daily Dot!

Children who take music lessons have better hearing as adults even if they stopped playing their instrument after just a few years of practice, a new study suggests.

People who learned to play an instrument while young are more responsive to complex sounds, making them better equipped to listen to a conversation in a noisy cafe or train carriage, researchers said.

Even those who had only played music for one to five years as a child showed a noticeable improvement over those who had never done so, in their brain’s ability to process sounds.

Although previous studies have shown that playing music has a healthy impact on our brain, the new paper is the first to demonstrate that the effects last for many years after people have given up the hobby.

Professor Nina Kraus of Northwestern University in Illinois, who led the study, said: “All these [previous] studies have been done in people who at the time of testing were still playing an instrument.

“This is really the first time that it has been demonstrated that in the more typical scenario - where someone has played a musical instrument for a number of years in childhood but then stopped - that prior training has a long-lasting effect on how their nervous system responds to sound.”

The researchers used electrodes to measure brain activity in 45 volunteers aged up to 31 as they listened to eight “complex” sounds, each comprising an array of different frequencies and timings to replicate the characteristics of speech or a piece of music.

Althouth they did not directly test participants’ hearing, monitoring the brain signal enabled the scientists to see how effectively the nervous system processed various elements of sound.

Compared with people who had never learned an instrument, those with some level of musical training had a stronger brain response to the sounds, the researchers reported in the Journal of Neuroscience.

They were particularly effective at being able to pull out the “fundamental frequency”, the lowest frequency in sound which is key when listening to speech and music in noisy environments.

Prof Kraus said: “Based on what we already know about the ways that music helps shape the brain, the study suggests that short-term music lessons may enhance lifelong listening and learning.

“We infer that a few years of music lessons also confer advantages in how one perceives and attends to sounds in everyday communication situations, such as noisy restaurants.”

There was no significant difference between those who had given up music after one to five years and those who had continued playing for up to eleven years, although the benefits from musical training were shown to dwindle slightly over time.

The scientists are already carrying out a second study to find out whether learning different instruments shapes the brain in different ways, and are planning a further experiment to see whether the benefits are still present in older adults.

If it is indeed nobler to give than to receive, it may also make you happier – even if you’re a toddler, according to a new study co-authored by three psychologists at the University of British Columbia.

The study, published in PLoS One, an on-line journal from the Public Library of Science, finds that toddlers under the age of two are happier when giving treats to others than receiving treats themselves.  Furthermore, children are happier when they give their own treats away than when they give an identical treat that doesn’t belong to them.

These findings support recent research showing that adults feel good when they help others and may help explain why people act pro-socially, even when doing so involves personal cost. This is the first study to show that giving to others makes young children happy.

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‘Route 29’ Batman, Lenny Robinson, turns out to be real-life superhero

Earlier this week, The Huffington Post reported that Batman had been pulled over — Batmobile and all — in Montgomery, Md., for not displaying a proper license plate.

It was discovered that the real plates were inside the car. In their place? The Batman symbol — naturally.

When videos of this masquerading Batman — whose real name is Lenny B. Robinson, a businessman from Baltimore County — first came to light, it seemed that the wealthy gentleman (whose ‘Batmobile’ is really a black Lamborghini) was simply having a lark.

But now, the Caped Crusader’s true intentions have came to the surface. It turns out he’s a real hero, after all.

According to the Washington Post, Robinson, 48, has been visiting sick children in hospitals in the Baltimore area since 2001. He dresses up as Batman when he makes his rounds and gives out Batman toys and other goodies to the kids. Sometimes his teenage son, Brandon, tags along as Robin.

Last week, as part of Hope For Henry’s annual Superhero Celebrations, Robinson — alongside Wonder Woman and Spiderman — was at Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C., visiting with children with cancer and other serious illnesses, PR Web reports.

“These visits provide an immediate boost for these kids,” Jeffrey Dome, the oncology division chief at Children’s National Medical Center in Northwest Washington, told the Washington Post.. “Some of these children have to stay for weeks or months at a time. That wears down the children and it wears down the family. A visit from a superhero is sort of like a fantasy in the middle of all this hard-core therapy.”

Robinson spends about $25,000 a year of his own money on Batman toys and memorabilia, the UK’s Metro reports.

“I’m just doing it for the kids,” he said. “It feels like I have a responsibility that’s beyond a normal person. And that responsibility is to be there for the kids, to be strong for them, and to make them smile as much as I can.”

Cancer preschool gives sick kids a chance to play

“We are making a difference in the lives of the children by giving back a part of their childhood that they otherwise would have lost due to the battle with cancer,” says Nancy Zuch, who teaches and is the center’s director.

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Archos Introduces Child-Friendly Android ICS 7-inch Tablet

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The new regulations, expected to go into effect later this year, will require orphanage officials to instead choose from the list of the 100 most common Chinese family names.

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Babies are born with an intuitive knowledge of physics, says researcher

Every new parent believes their kid could be the next Einstein. Now a new study suggests they might not be that far off.

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Citizen Ambassador and fashion model adopts Rwandan son

Anjhula Mya Bais is a woman with many roles. She is a fashion model, a former research student at Columbia University, a current PhD Candidate in international psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, an outspoken philanthropist, and a new wife. While traveling to Rwanda as a Citizen Ambassador, Anjhula adopted a new, rather unexpected role—and a son.

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‘Tutu Lady’ delivers joy to sick kids

Interactive episodes of Sesame Street are being developed by its creators in conjunction with Microsoft.

The tech company describes the innovation as “two-way television”.

The children’s show’s creators said that Microsoft’s Kinect gesture-based and motion-tracking controller was the “perfect input device” for pre-schoolers.

The announcement came at Microsoft’s last planned keynote presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show.

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Adopted kids mini-ambassadors come Lunar New Year

With its fireworks, family reunions and feasts, Lunar New Year is the longest and most important celebration for millions around the world.

For kids adopted from China, it holds special meaning. Lunar New Year makes them mini-ambassadors of a culture they know little about firsthand.

There’s no official handbook on how far parents of internationally adopted children should go to celebrate their kids’ birth cultures, but marking Lunar New Year — Year of the Dragon begins Jan. 23 — is usually one of those times for Asian children.

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For decades, it was common for officials around the country to approve foster parents by room and board criteria: Did they pass a background check? Is their home clean? Are their dogs safe and vaccinated?

Now several states including Florida, California and Wisconsin are trying to find ones who they know upfront will help with homework, sew Halloween costumes and accompany kids to doctor appointments. Complicating the efforts is the longtime problem of finding enough adults to house children in need.

In Germany, every child’s letter to Santa gets a response

Seven towns have special post offices dedicated to answering children’s notes

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