August 25, 2010
In many ways, my year begins with the school year which for me as a student and then a teacher began the first week in September. All the rhythms of my year are tied in with school. I recall how excited I was to meet with the students in my new classes (I usually taught science to either 9th or 7th graders and also had a class with seniors in what the school called “creative writing.”) I remember that by the end of the first week, my voice was hoarse and it would take the weekend to recover. By the second week of school I had learned how to modulate my speaking enough to last through the five teaching periods a day and the teacher interaction that took place during lunch period and my “free” periods. (Teachers know that there is no such thing as a “free” period; you just do things other than direct teaching.}
So as the summer is winding down and as school approaches or has already begun in some places, I want to reach out to teachers and say hi and good luck. I’ll be writing on my blog during the school year about all kinds of things including my speaking in schools across the country. I hope you’ll drop me a note from time to time, telling me about something interesting that is happening in your class in science or in nature or just about using my books with kids (and be sure to look at the free teacher guides for my books which you can easily download). From time to time, I’ll be awarding a free Skype session with a teacher and the class that is working with my books. Be sure to be in touch!
Photo: Seymour speaking in San Angelo, Texas, Spring 2010
Posted by: Seymour Simon
August 24, 2010
A very exciting discovery was announced today at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, France.
Astronomers have detected a planetary system containing at least five - and maybe seven - planets that orbit a star called HD 10180, which is much like our own Sun. They say this is the "richest" system of exoplanets - planets outside our own Solar System - ever found.
Up until now, astronomers had known of fifteen systems with at least three planets, but never one that was this similar to ours in terms of the number of planets (seven as compared to the Solar System’s eight planets). The team also has evidence that the distances of the planets from their star follow a regular pattern, as also seen in our Solar System (this is known as the Titius-Bode law).
The star is 127 light years away, in the southern constellation of Hydrus.
Researchers used the HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) instrument at the European Southern Observatory to monitor light emitted from the system. The lead author of the paper, Dr. Christophe Lovis, explained how the planet searcher works. "If there is one planet it will induce a little movement - the star will come towards us and move away….and what works for one [planet] works for many." Using HARP, Dr. Lovis and his team were able to measure this complicated mix of movements and break it down into individual planets, calculating the mass of each planet and the path of its orbit.
Martin Dominik, one of the researchers on the project, told reporters why this discovery is so important to us here on Earth. "[This] marks the way towards gathering the information that will put our own existence into cosmic context."
I have been an amateur astronomer all my life, and was President of the Junior Astronomy Club at the American Museum of Natural History when I was in high school. I love science news stories like these - I guess that is why I’ve written as many books as I have about space. Kids can read more about stars and the exoplanets that orbit them in my book STARS.
Photo Credits for this Science News story:
The first photograph shows a close-up of the sky around the star HD 10180. The picture was created from photographs taken through red and blue filters and forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. Provided courtesy of ESO.
The second image is an artist’s impression of the new solar system, also courtesy of ESO.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
August 22, 2010
Happy 90th birthday to Dr. Denton A. Cooley, who was born on August 22, 1920. Dr. Cooley is the heart-transplant pioneer who was also the first surgeon to implant an artificial heart in a human. On April 4, 1969, because no donor heart was available for a dying 47-year-old patient with diseased heart muscle, he implanted a mechanical heart made of silicone as a temporary measure. The experimental artificial heart was used for 65 hours, and was removed when a human heart became available.
I love this quote from Dr. Cooley: "The heart is really a fascinating organ. It’s about the only organ in the body that you can really witness its function. Doing things. Some of the other organs you can witness, like the intestines, will have this sort of peristaltic motion. But nothing that can compare with the activity of the human heart."
The heart is indeed a fascinating organ. Here is what I wrote about it:
Try squeezing a rubber ball with your hand. Squeeze it hard once a second. Your hand will get tired in a minute or two. Yet your heart beats every second of every day. In one year your heart beats more than thirty million times. In an average lifetime a heart will beat of 2,000,000,000 (two thousand million) times. The heart is a most incredible pump.
This pump - your heart - powers a river unlike any river on Planet Earth. The river of blood in your body travels 60,000 miles…..that’s two and a half times around the world!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
August 21, 2010
This just in from one of my favorite sites, SpaceWeather.com. A coronal hole on the sun is turning to face Earth. Coronal holes are places in the sun’s atmosphere where the magnetic field opens up and allows solar wind to escape. Here is a magnetic map of the hole from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory:
The magnetic field lines are color-coded in this very cool image. White lines are closed; they are holding the solar wind in. Golden lines are open; they allow the solar wind out. A stream of solar wind flowing from this coronal hole is expected to reach Earth on or about August 24th.
People in high latitudes (closer to the poles) have a chance of seeing auroras (also known as northern lights) this week, so keep your eyes peeled!
Image: Karel Schrijver, Lockheed Martin SAL
Posted by: Liz Nealon
August 17, 2010
I don’t know about you, but many of us here on the East Coast of the U.S. never caught a glimpse of last week’s Perseid meteor shower. After all the excitement about what a great year it was going to be for viewing because of the new moon keeping the sky very dark, the weather here was cloudy, and we didn’t see a thing.
Do not despair! Henry Jun Wah Lee shot this incredible time lapse video from California’s Joshua Tree National Park, editing several segments together into a montaged view of not only the meteor shower, but also of the Milky Way galaxy as it rotates in the night sky (well, actually, WE are rotating, but it looks like the stars are moving overhead).
Check this out. It is absolutely breathtaking.
Joshua Tree Under the Milky Way from Henry Jun Wah Lee on Vimeo.
Posted by: Liz Nealon
August 15, 2010
Hello fellow Shipmates,
Wow! It is mid August already…where has time gone? I never expected this summer to pass by so quickly but at least it has been a summer I will never forget. 
So what have you guys been up to? Has your summer been a summer you won’t forget too? Have you had a chance to do any outdoor activities, like camping or hiking yet? I’d love to hear about it. Or maybe you have gone to a museum, hung out with your Girl Scout or Boy Scout troops or attended a summer camp. If you have, please make sure to comment below. It makes me so happy to hear what everyone else is up to.
As for KTFBT (Kids Today for a Better Tomorrow), we have been busy little beavers. A group of us just recently headed out to a local Southern Californian forest to conduct a wilderness trail & river clean up. We went to a special place that us locals call Azusa Canyon, which is up in the San Gabriel Mountains. I was so happy to go because it was suggested by one of our KTFBT families, The Salazars. I thought it was very cool of them to have contacted us with their concerns.
They were very sad because they had gone up there a week before for a family trip but were sooo disappointed to have arrived only to be surrounded by trash and debris. Their dad, Peter, said that he had been going to Azusa Canyon for over 20 years even with his own father and it disgusted him how people had just abused and trashed one of his favorite places. It made him sad. So of course after talking with the Salazars, I spoke with our KTFBT members and we all agreed this forest was in need of our help. This forest is just as important as any forest but is very special in its own way. For instance, the San Gabriel Mountains’ wrinkled slopes and wildly lush canyons are also home to very special creatures. It is the habitat and playground of many rare and endangered species, like the Nelson’s bighorn sheep, mountain yellow-legged frogs, Santa Ana sucker fish and Pacific pond turtles. (And as you all know… turtles are dear to my heart
So quick as a flash (okay maybe not that fast but still within days), we were ready to go out and help restore the Salazars’ favorite family spot to its former glory. I couldn’t wait. The drive up there was beautiful.
All sorts of different trees surrounded us. Some tall, some short, some skinny, some fat, but each and every one of them beautiful in their own way. We also saw the San Gabriel reservoir (which is a man-made lake with a dam that collects the water of the many rivers that flow through the mountains). It was just beautiful.
When we finally got to the trail alongside the river we were amazed by how beautiful it was. I wouldn’t have even known this place was there if we hadn’t walked down into the canyon to find it. It was just great!!! We could only hear the sounds of nature all around us. The sound of the fast flowing river was so beautiful. I wish I’d had my recorder so I could take the sounds home with me, but it’s okay because I can still close my eyes and hear them when I focus on remembering. The...
read morePosted by: Alana G
August 12, 2010
Seymour Simon’s new Collins/Smithsonian book, TROPICAL RAINFORESTS, will be in store on August 24th. And we now have a 90-second video trailer so that you can preview this breathtaking photo essay book. Click here to view and enjoy!
Note to Teachers: This is a "safe" video, hosted on SeymourSimon.com. Clicking to watch this video will no longer take you to YouTube, or anywhere off Seymour’s website.
Posted by: Liz Nealon
August 12, 2010
Our friends David Kleeman and Leslie Hornig recently took a trip to the Galapagos Islands, known for their vast number of wildlife species. Charles Darwin traveled to the Galapagos on the H.M.S. Beagle in 1831, and his field work during that five-year long journey led to his breakthrough thinking on the Theory of Evolution. In fact, it is such a unique place that in 1978 the Galapagos were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, which called the 19 islands and the surrounding marine reserve a unique ‘living museum and showcase of evolution.’
David and Leslie decided to explore this unparalleled marine reserve while they were there, and Leslie shot this delightful underwater video. She titled it: "When Sea Lions Play Tag, the Star Fish is Always ‘It’"
Click here to view and enjoy!
Posted by: Liz Nealon
August 12, 2010
Last week Greenland’s Petermann Glacier shed a 100-square-mile chunk of ice, releasing a huge iceberg. Although the glacier has been regularly shedding smaller chunks, this was nearly one-quarter of the entire ice shelf of the glacier. It is the largest piece of ice to detach from an Arctic glacier since 1962 and follows the six warmest months on record. The chunk of ice is four times the size of Manhattan island, and is a possible danger to ships as it drifts into North Atlantic shipping lanes.
Unfortunately, this is yet another sign of the rapid advancement of Global Warming, as our formerly solid ice masses continue to shrink either via melting or "calving" big icebergs like this one. You can see an excellent slide show, courtesy of Britain’s Guardian newspaper, of satellite photos documenting this disturbing recent event by clicking on this link.
The above photograph of the Petermann Glacier was taken by Dave Walsh, a natural history photographer who won an Environmental Photographer of the Year Commendation in 2009 for his photograph entitled "Solar Energy vs Fossil Fuel."
Posted by: Seymour Simon
August 11, 2010
We keep talking about this week’s Perseid meteor shower because this is a particularly good year to see it. There is only a sliver of a moon, so the meteors will really pop against the dark sky. The best time for viewing the show will be the darkest hours before dawn on Friday morning (or very late Thursday night, depending on how you think about it). If the skies are clear where you live, you will be able to see dozens of meteors per hour. It’s about the most satisfying amateur astronomy experience you can have.
One August when my daughter was in elementary school, we planned a middle of the night Perseid party for her friends and their families. Everyone was invited to come at 3:30 am, with pajamas being acceptable attire! We asked them to bring a pillow for everyone and quilts that they didn’t mind laying in the dewey grass. I guided everyone via flashlight to the pitch dark meadow behind our house, and we laid together in the dark, ooh-ing and ah-ing as if it were a fireworks show. Then at 5am, as the rosy-fingered dawn started to illuminate the horizon, we brought everyone up to the house for a middle-of-the-night brunch. It was a memorable evening.
Of course, the trick to serving brunch in the middle of the night is to prepare everything in advance, so that you can sleep until the very last minute before guests arrive. I have a favorite quiche recipe which can be made in advance and quickly heated up in the oven or microwave. Cut up a fruit salad, set up the coffeemaker before you go to bed and you’re ready to go. For anyone who would like to try it this week, here’s my recipe. Enjoy it under the meteor shower!
PERSEID BREAKFAST QUICHE
Ingredients:
1 box pie crust mix 1 cup (1/2 pt.) Light Cream
8oz. Gruyere or Swiss Cheese (.5 lb) Nutmeg
3 eggs, beaten Salt & pepper to taste
½ c. bacon, mushrooms or other fillings as you wish 1 TBL butter
½ c. nonfat Milk
Preheat oven to 450º. Cut the cheese into small cubes. Pre-cook any meat that you plan to put in the quiche and crumble into small pieces. If you are using vegetables (scallions, mushrooms, etc), cut them up and sauté in butter until they are nice and soft. Remove from heat and set aside.
Make a single piecrust, put it into a pie dish and prick all over with a fork (so it doesn’t blow up into a big balloon!). I usually put some tin foil over the top edges to hold it up against the sides. Cook the piecrust alone for 5 minutes at 450 degrees.
After the piecrust is pre-cooked, sprinkle your fillings (bacon, scallions, etc) on the bottom and cover them with the cubed cheese.
In a bowl, beat three eggs. Add cream, milk, dash of nutmeg, sprinkle of salt and pepper. Pour over the cheese.
Bake 15 minutes at 450º. Then, turn oven down to 350º and bake 10-15 minutes more, til knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
Let it cool...
read morePosted by: Liz Nealon
