January 27, 2012

This morning, Seymour Simon posted a blog entry in which a student asked: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR? 

Seymour’s Answer: Since I was a kid I have had two favorite colors, and they are both the colors of nature. One is almost indescribable - the warm, pumpkin-like, mix of orange colors that you see in autumn. My other favorite color is the deep purple that you sometimes see in sunset clouds. 

Tonight, we had a spectacular sunset, which featured exactly the two colors he had in mind.

May 23, 2011

Look at this amazing photograph of the volcanic eruption in Iceland over the weekend. The plume of ash when the Grimsvotn volcano erupted on Saturday shot 12 miles into the air! (Photo: Egill Adalsteinsson / EPA).

Iceland is one of the most active volcanic regions in the world, because it Is located on both the Iceland hotspot and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which runs right through it. This location means that the island is highly geologically active with many volcanoes, and eruptions occurring on average roughly every three years. For example, in the 1900s there were 39 volcanic eruptions on and around Iceland.

The Grimsvotn volcano lies under the uninhabited Vatnajokull glacier. It began erupting Saturday for the first time since 2004. This is a different volcano than Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull, which erupted in April 2010. When that happened last year, large parts of Europe’s air space were closed for five days, because of the danger that the volcanic ash could harm jet engines. Some 10 million travelers were stranded.

This one doesn’t seem quite as disruptive. So far, airports are closed in Iceland, and they are keeping a close watch on the ash in nearby Great Britain.

Eruptions often cause local flooding from melting glacier ice, but rarely cause deaths. Police closed a main road near the volcano Sunday as heavy ash fell.

There have been some amazing photographs taken of volcanic eruptions in Iceland over the years.

You can see photos like this one and read about some of the earlier eruptions in my book VOLCANOES.

April 15, 2011

I had a great "double Skype" session today with third and fourth graders in two schools in Durham and Middlefield, Connecticut. They have been studying my books and skyping with each other, and today all three of us did a Skype session together.

This is a very good question, and one that I am asked quite often. For a shot like this one, of a rattlesnake’s mouth and fangs, the photographer uses a bit of trickery called a "telephoto lens." That lens takes a picture that seems as though you are very, very close, when in fact, you are safely far away. Nobody is going to get THAT close to a poisonous snake!

The round area with a dark slit (at the bottom of the rattlesnake’s mouth) is a duct for releasing the venom. You can learn more about that and see a diagram at this link. 

Thanks to Mrs. Kohs and everyone who helped to organize today’s Skype session. I really enjoyed talking with you all!

Photograph by Anup Shah/Dembinsky Photo Associates

February 22, 2011

Have you ever heard of a fog bow? A fog bow is similar to a rainbow, but it happens on foggy days. Like a rainbow, the fog bow is caused by sun passing through water, but the water droplets that cause fog are so small (less than 2/100 inch), the fog bow has very little color. Fog bows are sometimes called "white rainbows" or "cloudbows". Sailors call them "sea-dogs."

Check here every Tuesday for Seymour Simon’s "Cool Photo of the Week"!

Photo Credit: Mila Zinkova

February 8, 2011

Can you think of animals with webbed feet that act as paddles in the water? Pond and underwater frogs have them; so do ducks and other waterfowl. How about dogs? Dogs that are bred to work in the water - such as Newfoundland, Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Portuguese Water Dog, Field Spaniel, and German Wirehaired Pointer - all have webbed feet.  Little known fact, but absolutely true.

Photo: Senior Airman Julianne Showalter

January 25, 2011

Today’s "Cool Photo of the Week" is actually a microphotograph (photographs of very tiny things that can only be seen through a microscrope).

You are looking directly into the face of a Southern Hawker dragonfly (Aeshna cyanea). These large (up to 3-inchs long), brightly colored dragonflies are often found near ponds or rivers, where they breed. They also travel quite widely - you may see one in your garden - and they seem to be curious, often flying close to you and hovering.

Can you spot the dragonfly’s eyes are in this picture? The eyes are actually the two biggest things in this photograph - the two large, grayish ovals below the yellow are the dragonfly’s compound eyes. These two main eyes actually contain up to 30,000 (that’s right, thirty-thousand!) tinier eyes, which turn the dragonfly into a born predator. These eyes are like balls, and allow the dragonfly to spot movement all around it, so much so that it has 360-degree vision! This helps the dragonfly sense even the tiniest movement, so that it can feed on insects in the air all around it.

Photo Credit: André Karwath/Wikimedia

January 19, 2011

Photographer Bence Máté describes the scene in today’s Cool Animal Photo of the Week: "I was photographing hummingbirds when I heard the sharp, alarming noise of the birds reacting to the presence of a predator. Sixty feet away from me this green-crowned brilliant (also known as Heliodoxa jacula, a type of hummingbird) was fearlessly attacking a small viper."

Máté took this photograph in Costa Rica, where about 50 of the 338 known species of hummingbirds, as well as tree-dwelling vipers, live in the tropical foliage.

This amazing image is a winner in Nature’s Best Photography magazine’s 2010 Best Photography contest. You can see more great nature photography on their website.

January 4, 2011

OK, so I know we usually only highlight one special science or nature photo each week. But, this is such a spectacular sight, we just have to show you.

People in Europe and the Middle East were treated to a partial solar eclipse when the sun rose this morning. Because the moon was covering 85% of the sun, the sun rose as a crescent. This is not something that you see everyday!

This photo was taken by Peter Rosen in Stockholm, Sweden. There are many more amazing images at SpaceWeather.com.

January 3, 2011

This is a photograph of galaxy NGC 1275, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Though this galaxy is 230 million light-years away, it is one of the closest to our own Milky Way galaxy. The thin red strings surrounding the galaxy are cool gases, as compared to the white hot - 100-million-degrees Fahrenheit! – gas in the center.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration; Acknowledgment: A. Fabian (Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK)

December 16, 2010

What do you think the snake in this picture is doing?

If you said she’s trying to bite someone or something, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. If you said she is smelling the air around her, you got it it right! Snakes use their tongues to smell. She is flicking her tongue in the air because she’s looking for prey, or perhaps checking to see if there are predators nearby.

This is a European Grass Snake (Natrix natrix), sometimes called the Ringed Snake or Water Snake. This female is almost three-feet long (as tall as a first grader), but she is a non-venomous snake. It is often found near water and feeds almost exclusively on amphibians.

Photo: Wilder Kaiser 

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