October 29, 2010
Invasion of the Bedbugs! by guest blogger Jordan D. Brown
When I was a boy, I loved when my mom tucked me in at night, and sent me off to dreamland with these sweet words: “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite!” Today, many children and adults find this cute rhyming advice more terrifying than reassuring. After all, bedbugs are real bloodthirsty critters—and these tiny guys have been coming out in HUGE numbers.
Much to the joy of New York City tabloids and exterminator companies, bedbug infestations have been found at many high-profile businesses and landmarks including Niketown, Abercrombie and Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, the Metropolitan Opera House, the offices of Howard Stern, not to mention numerous movie theaters, housing projects, posh apartments and more. And this is not just a NYC phenomenon; bedbugs are reproducing in epidemic proportions across the country. Once bedbugs settle in, removing them can be costly, time-consuming, and tricky. Oh, and did I mention that bedbugs can live for a year without eating? (I’m cranky if I miss breakfast.)
What exactly are bedbugs? Why are they spreading in such alarming numbers? Is there anything you can do to protect yourselves from these creatures? Last year I wrote a children’s science book MICRO MANIA to explore such gross and engrossing questions. The subtitle...read more
Posted by: Liz Nealon
October 27, 2010
As I continue to edit and update my Science Dictionary , I’m loving the fact that it is a living, online document which I can improve and expand as kids are exposed to new scientific ideas, language, and breakthroughs.
The fact that I can add images makes it even more fun! This gorgeous creature is a Giant Leopard Moth, also called the Eyed Tiger Moth (Hypercompe scribonia). It is found throughout Southern and Eastern North America, from New England to Mexico. This species is a big one, with a wingspan of almost 3 inches (8 cm). Like most moths, it is nocturnal and only flies after nightfall.
If your kids (or students) haven’t yet discovered my online Science Dictionary, check it out with them today. It’s there as a resource for them to use with their homework, as well as to entice them to browse, enjoy and learn.
Photo Credit: Wikimedian Kevincollins123
Posted by: Seymour Simon
October 27, 2010
Look at this entry in Seymour’s Go Gorilla! Contest. This is Olivia doing her best imitation of Gorilla behavior. What a cutie!
If you or your class haven’t yet entered, it’s easy. No fancy video equipment needed — you can even use a cell phone that records video. Then click on the “Send Us Photos/Video” link at the top of Seymour’s home page. The instructions are clear and simple (we designed it that way, so that a kid can do it!).
This contest only runs through the Fall semester, so enter now to win personally autographed Seymour Simon books, have your video showcased on the website for the world to see, or if you’re the Grand Prize winner, a Seymour Simon SKYPE session (that’s a conversation over computers, using a web cam) for your class.
You’ve got to be in it to win it. Study up on gorilla behavior, point your camera and GO GORILLA!
Posted by: Liz Nealon
October 25, 2010
Tornadoes were reported yesterday in Tennessee and Alabama, and a particularly destructive tornado struck Rice, Texas at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, destroying homes, turning over vehicles and knocking a railroad car right off the tracks, according to Navarro County Chief Deputy Mike Cox. Fortunately the only injuries were relatively minor, but also caused extensive damage to Rice Elementary School, which means it struck very close to home for local kids.
Children who live in "Tornado Alley" (from Texas north to Nebraska) can learn what to do to protect themselves and their families. I’m going to reiterate some of what I’ve written previously on this subject, as well as answer some questions that kids are likely to ask. Giving elementary-age (and older) children information is the best way to offer reassurance and reduce anxiety.
Why is this happening when it’s not "tornado season" (usually defined as April through July, with May and June being the peak months)? Like thunderstorms, tornadoes can form any time of the year.
What is a tornado and why does it cause such destruction? A tornado’s funnel looks like a huge elephant’s trunk hanging down from a cloud. The funnel acts like a giant vacuum cleaner…whenever the "hose" touches the ground, it sucks things up into the air.
Usually, tornadoes are local storms. A typical tornado is only 400 to 500 feet wide, has winds of less than 112 miles per hour, and last only a few minutes. But sometimes, monster tornadoes a mile wide with winds up to 500 miles per hour are born in very large thunderstorms - also called supercells - and they can cause tremendous destruction. Tornadoes have moved houses down a whole block, bounced 20-ton tractor-trailers up and down on the highway, even picked up a pond full of frogs and rained them down on a nearby town!
If you live near an area that is prone to tornadoes at this time of year, the most important things to remember are:
* Pay attention to early warning sirens and alerts on radio and television, so that you can take shelter before a tornado strikes.
* Cars and mobile homes are NOT safe during a tornado. Go to the basement of a solidly built house.
* If you are in an apartment or home without a basement, getting into a bathtub and covering yourself with a couch cushion or a mattress protects you on all sides.
* If you are out walking or biking, life flat in a ditch if there is no rain. If there is rain, there may be a danger of flash flooding, so stay out of the ditch, get away from trees and power lines, crouch down and make yourself as small as possible - be a "human basketball"!
You don’t have to worry too much in advance about tornadoes, but finding out when they are coming and knowing what to do is certain to help you if one strikes.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
October 20, 2010
People often ask me how I choose the subjects for my books. Titles come about in all sorts of ways.
Sometimes it is simply a topic that I am very passionate about (hence all my books about Space and exploring our universe - this has been a fascination for me since I was a little kid). At other times, my editor and I decide what is needed to "fill out" an existing series. For example, my recent Collins/Smithsonian books have been dealing with environmental topics like Global Warming and Tropical Rainforests, and now I’m just beginning research on a third topic for that environmental strand, about Coral Reefs.
Often, I will decide to do a book simply because it is on a topic that I know kids will love. I’ve just finished up a new book with my good friend, the illustrator Dennis Kendrick. It’s called Silly Dinosaur Riddles, and it hits two enduring hot spots for elementary-aged kids — they love dinosaurs, and they love to tell jokes and riddles! So, deciding on that topic was easy, and we’re delighted with the way that it came out. It’s also going to be my first original eBook - designed to read on a smartphone, an iPad, or any other tablet reader. More and more schools and libraries are buying these devices to use with kids, and I’m excited to be creating books that children can read on one of these new readers.
Back in 2002, I wrote two books that I knew my young grandsons would love — Seymour Simon’s Book of Trucks, and Seymour Simon’s Book of Trains. One of the very nice things about writing for children is that books have long lives. Every three or four years, you get a new crop of kids who grow into the topic or reading level, and fall in love with your book all over again.
That happened this week with my Book of Trains, when I discovered this lovely review by Frances Loving, a librarian who writes a thoughtful blog called Quiet Ramblings. The book may be almost ten years old, but it’s clearly still relevant for her students! Click here to read her review.
I always like to hear from readers, parents and teachers. If there is a topic that you’d like to see me cover, drop me a note here and let me know!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
October 14, 2010
I am wearing my favorite shirt today - a drawing of planet Earth with a "Saving" status bar below, registering about 30%. Saving Earth is something I find myself thinking about nearly every day…..especially when I read the news and see how many of the predictions of the consequences of global warming are coming to pass.
2010 has been a year of weather extremes - huge snowfalls in places that normally don’t get much snow at all, a deadly heat wave this summer in Russia leading to fires that killed 700 people per day, and unprecedented flooding in Pakistan that has affected 21 million people (1-out-of-8 Pakistanis), leaving at least 6 million people homeless and an area the size of Italy underwater.
Scientists say that the devastating floods in Pakistan and Russia’s heatwave were both the kind of extremes caused by global warming. We don’t know enough to blame manmade pollution and the greenhouse effect for directly causing any single, specific weather disaster, but we are certainly seeing an escalating pattern of climate extremes that are most likely part of a change in Earth’s climate, caused by global warming.
How is it that we get both extreme drought and extreme precipitation, even huge amounts of snow, when temperatures are increasing? The reasons that droughts are getting worse is pretty obvious for areas that generally have little rainfall - when the temperature gets hotter, drought conditions get even worse. But extreme rain and snow? Well, there is a physical law (it’s called the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, for those of you who want to look it up!) which established that the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere increases by about 7% for every 1°C rise in temperature. Because precipitation comes mainly from weather systems that feed on the water vapor stored in the atmosphere, this has generally increased precipitation intensity and the risk of heavy rain and snow events.
2010 has also been a very bad year for our planet’s coral reefs. Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch, said high ocean temperatures in 2010 are causing corals to whiten, or bleach. "Major bleaching started in the Central Pacific in the early part of this year, then there was bleaching in the Indian Ocean and especially Southeast Asia throughout May and June. And now the big concern is that we may be seeing the worst bleaching ever in the Caribbean, later this year." According to NOAA, this thermal stress to corals is the highest it has been since 1998, when 15% of the world’s coral reefs died.
I am about to begin work on a book about coral reefs, which are some of the most biologically diverse and economically valuable ecosystems on earth. Coral reefs are a source of food for millions of people, protect coastlines from storms and erosion; provide habitat for thousands of fish species, and provide many human jobs in both the fishing and tourism industries. In a nutshell, no reefs, no fish. Not good for marine biodiversity, and not good for us humans, either.
I...
read morePosted by: Seymour Simon
October 13, 2010
People often ask me if I personally shoot all the photographs in my photo-essay books, since both words and images are so important in telling the story. The answer is that although I use my own photographs whenever I can, often the subject matter demands photographs that can only be had from specialists. For example, books like PENGUINS or the forthcoming BUTTERFLIES include photos by professionals who have literally spent years observing and photographing these animals. Part of what I do when I’m writing a book is photo research - scouring the archives to find photographs that I believe will best illuminate and in many cases expand on the text. Sometimes, if I find a photograph that is interesting enough, I will even rewrite the page to go with the photograph. It is a fluid process, writing and doing photo research, and one that I really enjoy.
I do, however, photograph nature and animals often….pretty much every week I find one day when I can get away from my desk and spend time in the outdoors with my camera. We recently visited an alpaca farm in Columbia County, NY, and I found these animals to be irresistibly photogenic. The bangs hanging over their eyes certainly enhance what are already quirky, expressive faces!
We often are tempted to assign human emotions to animals…..like thinking that this little guy is looking at me quizzically. The fact of the matter is, when you get close to an alpaca, it often summons up green liquid (from chewing its cud) to spit at you. Spitting is how they stake out their territory, as well as reinforce the pecking order in the herd. Unfortunately, when an alpaca is sucking on partially digested grass, he often gets a bad case of sour mouth.
So, although I’d like to tell you a lovely story about how this young cria (pronounced "cree-ah," the Spanish word for baby alpaca, commonly used among English-speaking breeders, too) and I established a wonderful relationship, the truth is he was just letting me know I was getting too close to his territory!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
October 12, 2010
There is a fascinating story in this week’s Science News for Kids. Researchers at a number of universities are building nanorobots which they hope eventually will be able to fight disease right inside the human body! The prefix "nano" comes from both from Latin [nānus] and from Greek [nanos], meaning a dwarf, or a little old man. In science, we use nano- to mean something very small; it can also precisely mean one-billionth (a "nanosecond" is one-billionth of a second). So now you know why Apple named their smallest iPod the Nano!
At any rate, these nanorobots are built from DNA, which of course is the building block of human life, and they travel through the body by hooking onto other DNA ‘ladders’. At some point in the future scientists could, for example, program one of these nanorobots to attack a specific cancer cell, but leave all the healthy cells around it alone. Click here to read this very interesting story about nanorobots.
Illustration shows a nanorobot crawling along a DNA track. Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller
Posted by: Seymour Simon
October 4, 2010
Happy World Space Week! In 1999 the United Nations General Assembly decreed that every year from October 4-10 should be the largest annual space event on our Planet Earth!
What can you do in your home or your school to celebrate World Space Week? Well, the most important thing is to simply take the time to look at, read about, and celebrate the wonders of our Universe. Years ago, I published a book of poetry called STAR WALK,
in which I juxtaposed color photographs of space with poems by a range of authors. (As we all know, poetry doesn’t sell. The book is long out of print, although you may find it in your library). I wrote this in the introduction to the book:
As far back as early Native Americans such as the Passamaquoddy, and even before that, people have looked to the stars in wonder and appreciation. They wrote stories and poetry about the fixed stars and the wandering planets, the bright Sun and the changing shapes of the Moon…..the glowing comets and streaking meteors. They also drew pictures of what they had seen and, in more recent times, photographed the amazing sights of space.
Take some time and look at the night sky this week. Jupiter remains the brightest “star” in the sky, other than the moon, and is visible to the west every night. If you look through binoculars, you may even see one or more of its moons.
Look up at the millions upon millions of stars that make up the Milky Way. To the naked eye, our galaxy looks like a hazy band of light that stretches across the night sky. The longer you look and allow your eyes to adjust to the dark, the more stars you will see. But still, we only see a fraction of the stars that are out there. After all, Alpha Centauri, the closest star to us after the Sun, is 4.3 light-years, or 25-trillion miles, away. Even a spaceship traveling ten miles per second would take more than seventy-thousand years to get to Alpha Centauri!
We are part of a vast, fascinating Universe, and with advances like the Hubble Space Telescope and other emerging exploration technologies, we are just at the beginning of a golden age of discovery.
I’m going to leave you with the words of one of my heroes, the great scientist and astronomer Sir Isaac Newton.
I seem to have been only a boy playing on the seashore,
and diverting myself in now and then
finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary,
whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Happy World Space Week to all my readers!
—- Seymour
Posted by: Seymour Simon
October 1, 2010
NASA has annnounced that a team of planet hunters including scientists from the NASA Astrobiology Institute’s teams has discovered a planet with three times the mass of Earth orbiting a nearby star at a distance that places it squarely in the middle of the star’s “habitable zone,” an area where liquid water could exist on the planet’s surface. If confirmed, this would be the most Earth-like exoplanet yet discovered, and the first strong case for a potentially habitable one.
What is a "Goldilocks" planet? A planet that is not too hot, not too cold, but JUST RIGHT for life as we know it to exist. This is the first exoplanet discovered that is just right! This is very exciting news because it means that Goldilocks Planets may be very common in the Milky Way Galaxy. Just think: Science Fiction authors may have been right all along in their stories about life on distant stars.
The large planet in the foreground of this artist’s image is the newly discovered GJ 581g. Image Credit: Lynette Cook/NASA
Posted by: Seymour Simon
