September 18, 2011
It is autumn in the northeast, which means that the countryside is dappled with fields of goldenrod. These yellow weeds are a favorite of the monarch butterfly, and everywhere that I went today, there were monarchs flitting amongst the yellow flowers, sipping their nectar.
Then, I realized that all the monarchs I saw were also flying in a southerly direction. The winter migration has begun. Over the next few weeks, these delicate creatures will travel nearly 3,000 miles to their winter home in Mexico.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
September 14, 2011
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I was so pleased to receive a letter recently from Cam P, who just started second grade in New Jersey. Cam’s favorite book is one of mine - TORNADOES. So, he decided to write his own book on the subject, called TWISTERS. Nice job, Cam, and thank you for your letter!
What Cam did - writing a book inspired by one of his favorite authors - is something that writers often do. One of my favorite authors is named Rachel Carson, and when I read her book THE SEA AROUND US, I realized for the first time that I could be a writer.
So, Cam (and other students who love to read and write about nature) - keep writing! You, too, might turn out to be a published author one day.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
September 13, 2011
Since soccer season is starting, we decided that today’s Cool Photo of the Week should be of a soccer ball in space! NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope captured this image of Kronberger 61, known as the "Soccer Ball" Nebula.
A nebula is a cloud of gas and dust in outer space. They occur when a star starts to die because it has run out of fuel. The outer layers of the star explode, giving off layers of gas that form a planetary nebula around the dying star. It gives off a fluorescent glow because of the intensity of the radiation from the star.
The Soccer Ball Nebula was discovered by an amateur astronomer over the summer, and scientists plan to watch it in hope of learning more about how planetary nebulas are formed.
Photo: Gemini Observatory / AURA
P.S. Do they call this the "Football Nebula" outside the United States? British, Canadian, Australian readers - someone comment and let me know!
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Posted by: Seymour Simon
September 12, 2011
Just after school started, I received a question from a fifth grade study group asking me: "Is the moon just a big rock?" Of course, that is exactly what the moon is, but being a former teacher, I never give a simple answer like that. Instead, I asked them if they would please do some research and write back to me with interesting information that they learned about the moon.
Well, they did a great job! I received this email from Angela, Diana, Martin and Andres, who are a science study group in Mrs. Williamson’s Fifth Grade class at Wolf Canyon Elementary School, in California.
Dear Seymour Simon:
Our science group found two great, interesting facts about the moon.
1) The moon is the fifth largest satellite in the solar system.
2) It is thought to be formed some 4.5 million years ago.
Thank you for your great science books!
Good work by Mrs. Williamson’s science group! They did their homework and found some very interesting facts about the moon.
Soon, we are going to learn all sorts of new information about the moon. On Saturday, NASA launched a new moon research mission called GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory). We are not sending human beings this time - there won’t be any new footprints on the moon - but we are using advanced photography techniques to learn much more about how the moon was formed. And in particular, we are going to get a much clearer look at the "dark side of the moon," which faces away from our planet Earth.
GRAIL consists of two satellites, which will separate from the rocket that is carrying them into space and become lunar orbiters (satellites that orbit around the moon). They will photograph the surface of the moon as they pass over it, and scientists will be able to accurately measure various formations and moonscapes based on how far apart the satellites are. The project will study how the moon was formed, what its interior consists of, and why the side seen from Earth looks so different from the lighter-colored "far side." We know that the far side is covered with hardened rock from lava flows, but there is much more we can learn.
Most exciting to me is that for the first time, NASA has put a camera onboard that is strictly for classroom use. Called the MoonKAM, teachers can register their classes and middle-school students can request photography of lunar targets for classroom study. Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, is heaing up the project. Imagine, allowing students to take their own pictures, so that they can study the surface of the moon. I wish that opportunity had happened when I was a middle school science teacher!
Photos: NASA
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Posted by: Seymour Simon
September 7, 2011
Wildfires are forces of nature like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. But unlike most other natural disasters, wildfires can sometimes be prevented or at least controlled more easily. Strangely, fire fighters sometime start fires instead of putting them out. Using a fire starter called a drip torch, fire fighters set small blazes on purpose. These small fires help to control fires already burning or prevent large wildfires from starting by burning away undergrowth and dead wood in the path of a raging fire.
For many years, fire fighters put out natural fires as quickly as possible. But the more that fuel on a forest floor or a dry grassland builds up, the worse a wildfire is going to be. Lack of rain and intense days of high temperatures also contribute to wildfires. That’s what is happening in parts of Texas and California right now. It will take lower temperatures and plentiful rains to finally control these huge blazes.
In the future though, preventative fires need to be put to use before a wildfire even starts. Most scientists say that wildfires are part of nature. The only question is when they will happen and how we deal with them. In areas with people and houses, wildfires have to be brought under control as quickly as possible. But in wilderness areas, wildfires are different. Allowing small fires to burn naturally may be one way to prevent tragedies where human lives are lost and houses burned out. Some states such as Florida burn many acres of grassland in the everglades each year to prevent out-of-control future wildfires.
Photograph from Seymour Simon’s book WILDFIRES.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
September 7, 2011
Today’s "Cool Photo of the Week" is of a Rockhopper penguin (Eudyptes chrysocome). They are called "rockhoppers" because they live on cold, rocky islands and get around by hopping from rock to rock. Click here to see a video of a whole flock of rockhopper penguins doing their thing!
These unusual looking penguins have dark red eyes, and their heads are decorated with a tuft of yellow feathers that look like eyebrows sticking out from the side of the head. They are carnivores (meat eaters), feeding on crustaceans, cephalopods and small fish. When trying to attract a mate, a Rockhopper will shake its head back and forth, tossing and showing off those beautiful yellow feathers.
Like all penguins, rockhoppers move awkwardly on land, but they are powerful swimmers. Check out this amazing video of rockhoppers surfing the waves.
Photo: AdventurewithJenna.com
You can read more about Penguins in Seymour Simon’s book, which is now available in paperback.
Posted by: Liz Nealon
September 2, 2011
I have a home in the upper Hudson Valley near the New York State-Massachusetts border. The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States were just hit by the enormous rains and flooding caused by Hurricane Irene last weekend. Driving around looking at the swollen rivers and streams and the downed trees in some areas I realized that there was another, more seasonal, change in some of the trees. They were beginning to turn red, the way they do every autumn.
Autumn is one of my favorite times of year in the Northeast. Ideal autumn weather is bright, warm days and cool, crisp nights. The days grow shorter, the nights longer, pumpkins and tomatoes are ready to harvest, and yes, school is starting up again.
I wrote a series of books about the Seasons Across America. The photograph above is one that I took of autumn leaves for my book AUTUMN ACROSS AMERICA. Here is the explanation I wrote in that book about the change of color:
Yellows, oranges and golds are produced in leaves by pigments (coloring materials) called carotenes, reds by pigments called anthocyanins. You can’t see these colors during the growing season because they are hidden by the bright green of chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is the green pigment that helps plant cells use sunlight to make food, a process called photosynthesis. In autumn, as days grow shorter, chlorophyll production slows down and the green fades, revealing the yellows of the carotenes.
When chlorophyll production stops, a layer of woody cells develops and begins to seal off the leaf from the twig. Water can no longer reach the leaf. As the trapped sugar breaks down, red anthocyanin colors are produced by exposure to sunlight. Cloudy, rainy autumn weather prevents the red colors from forming. Ideal red colors come when autumn has bright sunny days followed by cool nights.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
August 31, 2011
For the past twenty years, a rare group of spiders in Britain have been in danger of becoming extinct. Their natural habitat had become endangered due to the development of towns and the conversion of their environment to farm land. These beautiful spiders are called ladybird spiders in England – because the males have bright red bodies with 4 big black spots on them (much like the insect that we call the ladybug here in the U.S).
When British wildlife experts realized their local population had dwindled to just 56 spiders, they realized it was time to find them a new home! They started by collecting the spiders and allowing them to mate in captivity, so that their numbers could grow. Now, they’ve started introducing the spiders back into the wild. They’ve placed the spiders in a site that’s already home to 240 other species of spiders and hundreds of other insects. What’s interesting is that they’ve introduced the ladybird spiders to this area by placing them in recycled plastic bottles! These bottles are filled with heather and moss to resemble the spiders’ past environment and when the spider is ready to move out, it can crawl out of the bottle and find a suitable new home. Here’s hoping their group gets bigger and we get to see many more of these beautiful spiders in the future!
Would YOU like to see one? I would!
Read lots more about spiders in these Seymour Simon books:
Animals Nobody Loves
Photo Credits:
Image 1: Maarten Bos/Flickr
Image 2: Ian Hughes
Posted by: Liz Nealon
August 30, 2011
As Hurricane Irene exited the scene she left a crisp, cool, pre-autumn day here in the Northeast. I worked at my desk all day on a new book, and then decided that I would like to get some exercise before dinner. I went to the driving range to hit some golf balls…..and discovered a beautiful Great Egret picking its way through puddles of water on long spindly legs!
The owner told me that the entire field was under water after the storm, and as the flood from the nearby river receded, his 10-year-old daughter Starsea found crawfish in the puddles. That makes sense. Great Egrets (also known as White Herons) are wading birds that eat fish, crustaceans (shell fish) and small reptiles, like frogs. They stalk their prey in shallow water, running or shuffling their feet to flush their prey into view.
Once the field dries out, these water birds will make their way back to the nearby lake, and soon they will be flying south for the winter. And we’ll get our driving range back for hitting golf balls!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
August 29, 2011
Don’t pay any attention to people who are saying that government officials over-reacted by urging us all to prepare for Hurricane Irene. The past 48 hours were a textbook example of the value of good preparation. This was a massive, slow-moving storm, and forecasters correctly predicted days in advance that the problem would be huge amounts of rain and flooding, rather than wind. Many, many more lives could have been lost had people not heeded orders to evacuate the areas that have been flooded by rivers and streams overflowing their banks.
Meteorologists did an amazing job of predicting this particular storm’s path. Retired National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield described it as a "gold medal forecast. I don’t think there’s any doubt," he said. "I think they saved lives." By Tuesday night, they predicted that Hurricane Irene would rake the coast. And on Friday morning - 24 hours before landfall - they accurately predicted the storm’s next day location to within 10 miles. That is extraordinarily accurate.
The main reason that meteorology (the science of predicting weather) is getting more accurate is that we are building better computer models, and scientists are also getting more and better data to plug into those models. As Hurricane Irene formed in the Caribbean, days before it made landfall in the US, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency) sent up old-fashioned propeller planes and weather balloons into the storm. They gathered Doppler radar information, which was then plugged into computer models that helped to predict how the storm would be develop.
Twenty years ago, 24-hour forecasts were lucky if they got it right within 100 miles. With Irene, that was about the accuracy of the forecast five days ahead of the storm. The more we learn about hurricanes, the better our chances of staying safe.
Photo: GLENN RUSSELL, Burlington Free Press
Posted by: Seymour Simon
