Label: Science News

December 4, 2010

How does the new NASA announcement impact my old book, SPACE MONSTERS?

The first book I ever wrote was titled SPACE MONSTERS. I wrote it when I was in 2nd Grade in elementary school in the Bronx. It was about taking a trip to a strange planet circling some distant star way out in the Milky Way Galaxy. I made up stories about the life that you could see on this make-believe planet and even drew my own pictures of those "space monsters." Have you ever written a book like mine? Lots of kids do.

When I grew up, I wrote the book again. This time it was really published. The title is SPACE MONSTERS FROM MOVIES, TV AND BOOKS. Here’s a picture of the cover of that book. 

Would I need to change my book if I wrote it today in stead of way back when I was 8 years old? Not really. I was already imagining all kinds of life, some based on Silicon rather than Carbon. I called them "Rock Monsters." (Silicon is an element present in rocks and minerals, much the way Carbon is an element present in living things that we know.) In science fiction, you can imagine all kinds of interesting things. Sometimes an idea that you imagine in Science Fiction comes true in real Science. How about you trying to imagine a discovery in a science fiction story? Wouldn’t if be fun if your discovery came out to be true when you’re older? 

December 4, 2010

A scanning-electron micrograph image of arsenic-eating bacteria. (Science/AAAS)        

Kids are asking a lot of questions this week. Like: What is all this talk about alien life being discovered? And: Why is NASA making the announcement, when the discovery is in California, not in space? Kids (and many adults) are wondering why this is such a big deal.

The simple answer is that we always thought there were six elements essential to all life as we know it till now: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. As we send probes to search the solar system looking for signs of life, we have been looking for the presence of these elements (including water, which is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, or H₂O). Now, researchers have discovered microbes in a hostile environment called Mono Lake, which replace phosophorus with arsenic. If the claim holds up, it would support the idea that life as we know it isn’t the only way life could develop. 

Felisa Wolfe-Simon (no relation), is an astrobiology researcher who originally proposed the theory, and she co-authored the paper that caused all the excitement this week. "If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven’t seen yet?" she asked. "Now is the time to find out."

If life is more adaptable than we previously thought, then it expands the possibilities for places that we might find life beyond Earth. That, in a nutshell, is what this week’s excitement is all about. 

 Mono Lake, 13 miles east of Yosemite National Park.

November 30, 2010

Have you ever been drenched because you were standing too near a dog shaking water from her coat? It turns out that dogs (and other mammals including mice, tigers, and bears) really know how to shake. 

Science News reports that researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology recorded video of 40 different animals, representing 15 different species. They wanted to learn about how wet, hairy mammals shake off water after they get drenched.

They learned that these animals are not only expert shakers, but they each do it at exactly the right speed to eliminate all those pesky water drops. 

Why is it important for mammals to quickly shed excess water? Dr. David Hu, who led the study, told Science News: "If a dog couldn’t dry itself, we calculated that it would have to use 25 percent of its daily calories to heat its body to get rid of the water. Every time they got wet they would get hypothermia and die."

No wonder your dog is such an expert shaker!

Dog Photo: Alamy/guardian.co.uk

Bear Photo: Mike Dunn/NaturalSciences.org

November 13, 2010

A scientist was watching his cat drink water one day, and started to wonder why it was able to drink so neatly and quietly - especially because his dog made so much noise and mess slurping up water from its bowl.

So, he did what scientists do when they have a question - he called some friends and they decided to run an experiment. Drinking cats lap with their tongues so quickly - four times per second - that all our human eye can see is a blur. So, the scientists used high-speed cameras to capture a cat drinking. What they discovered was pretty amazing.

A drinking cat darts its tongue into the bowl so delicately that the tip just lightly touches the surface of the milk. When it pulls its tongue back, it is moving so quickly that a thin stream of milk gets pulled up behind it. Just at the moment when gravity is about to take over and cause the milk to fall…..SNAP! The cat closes its jaws over the stream of liquid and swallows it. 

A perfectly neat solution!

Since I have written books about both DOGS and CATS, kids often tell me which one they really love, and which one they think makes a better pet. The truth is that both dogs and cats can each be good and loyal pets.

But when it comes down to who is a neater, more elegant drinker? Cats win, paws down!

November 11, 2010

In case you didn’t notice, Jupiter’s great South Equatorial Belt (SEB) disappeared this year!

Don’t worry, though. The huge, gassy planet is going to be fine. That belt (which we see as a dark brown stripe but is actually a mass of dark clouds) has disappeared before.

When it has returned in the past, astronomers have described an amazing sight….and it appears that is starting to happen again. A high energy, white plume is pushing through the clouds on Jupiter, and this probably means that the stripe is coming back.

Since most of us don’t have high-powered telescopes, we can rely on the people at SpaceWeather.com, who love to record these things. There will be updates and plenty of images on their website, so keep checking in the coming weeks.

But in the meantime you can see Jupiter in the night sky. Look up overhead at night. Jupiter is the brightest object in the night sky after the moon this month. You can’t miss it. Just look up at night and look for the brightest "star" (really a planet and really Jupiter). 

November 11, 2010

How do insects know when it’s time to take a bath? When their feet get dirty and lose their stickiness! Insects depend on their adhesive footpads to help them travel safely on leaves, along braches, even over craggy rocks. A new study of the behavior of beetles found that when they start to slip, they know it is time to stop and groom themselves!

Leaf Beetle photo: S.N. Gorb, University of Kiel, Germany 

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.)

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.     

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...

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.  

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