December 8, 2011

Forty-nine penguins rescued from an oil spill off New Zealand have been nursed back to health and were released back into the ocean on Tuesday by wildlife rescuers and local schoolchildren.

Don’t you love this photograph of Little Blue Penguins running back into the ocean? 

They were fitted with microchips, so that researchers can track the progress of their recovery.

The birds released Tuesday are among 343 little blue penguins that have been cleaned of oil since a cargo ship ran aground on a reef off the coast of New Zealand on Oct. 5 and spilled some 400 tons of fuel oil. More than 2,000 sea birds died in the spill. Fortunately, marine life experts from New Zealand, Australia and the United States worked together to save the animals who returned happily to the sea this week.

December 7, 2011

The Tokyo car show opened this week, which means we get to see what are called "Concept Cars" - automakers imagining what cars of the future look like, and what they will be able to do. I love new technology and gadgets, so this is always fun for me. 

This year, everyone is talking about Toyota’s Fun-Vii. Vii stands for "vehicle interactive internet," and the car functions like a "smartphone on wheels." The doors of the car are touchscreens, so that drivers can change the way the car looks, communicate with people in other cars, and connect to the Internet while they are driving.

Imagine being able to call up a photograph on your phone, click it, and suddenly your car is wrapped with the photo. 

Or how about you touch the door and video text with the friend who you are meeting?

Perhaps best of all, they imagine that this car will have autopilot, with a virtual reality "co-pilot" who not only drives the car but also reads you your text messages, finds the nearest ice cream shop, or corrects your route when there is traffic ahead.

No one is actually making these cars right now - but it is not quite science fiction, either. Concept cars are based on the technology that engineers are developing right now, so they are almost like a glimpse of the future of driving.

What do you think? Would you like to have a car like this one? Why?

I even wrote a book about them!

December 4, 2011

Entomologist (bug scientist) Mark Moffett, who works at the Smithsonian institution, traveled all the way to New Zealand to try to find a Giant Weta (Deinacrida heteracantha).

He found one, all right - what he claims is the largest insect ever found…..or at least, the heaviest. Moffett says: "I did not measure anything but the weight. I’ve seen a walking stick nearly 19 inches long in Sarawak, Malaysia, but it weighed next to nothing." The giant weta weighed in at 2.5 ounces (71 grams) - that is as much as three mice!

These huge insects are members of the cricket family; their genus name, Deinacrida, is Greek for terrible grasshopper. They are vegetarians, which is why Moffett offered her a carrot. "She enjoyed the carrot so much she seemed to ignore the fact she was resting on our hands and carried on munching away. She would have finished the carrot very quickly, but this is an extremely endangered species, and we didn’t want to risk indigestion."

Photo: Mark Moffett / Minden / Solent

December 1, 2011

Thursday is COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK day on the Seymour Science blog. Since we’ve been talking about Mars all week long, we thought our video should continue that theme.

This video is a little different than the ones we usually choose. In this case, you have to look really hard to spot a tiny light, moving quickly upward through the night sky (in the center of the screen).

See it?

This video shows the newest Mars explorer craft departing Earth shortly after its launch on November 26. 

The spacecraft is carrying a car-sized robot rover named Curiosity. Scientists hope that information sent back by Curiosity will help them learn a lot more about Mars. They will also be getting critical information that will help them plan for an eventual human mission to the Red Planet.

I love watching the sky and seeing manmade spacecraft passing overhead. Every time I see the International Space Station (ISS) move across the night sky, I applaud as it exits my field of vision. The thought that there are brave human beings far overhead, exploring space and the possibilities of our Solar System, just thrills me. Do you think that one day that we’ll be able to look up in the sky and know that there are humans on their way to Mars? I hope so!

By the way, if you are as interested as I am in seeing the ISS and other satellites in orbit, SpaceWeather.com has an easy-to-use page where you enter your zip code and get schedule for when you can spot these magnificent flybys. You don’t even need a telescope - just clear skies and your own two eyes! 

Video: Gerhard Dangl

Photo: An artist’s concept illustrates what the Mars rover Curiosity will look like on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. 

November 29, 2011

For today’s Cool Photo of the Week, Seymour Simon chose this photograph taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, an unmanned satellite that has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2005. The orbiter is searching for evidence that water was once present on the surface of Mars. NASA scientists also want to know whether water was present long enough to support life at some time in the past. 

Look at the deep ditches and trails criss-crossing the sand dunes in an area of Mars known as the Russell Crater. These trails were carved into the landscape by "dust devils," mini-tornadoes that whip across the Martian landscape. The ditches are formed when chunks of frozen carbon dioxide slide down the face of steep dunes.

When I speak at schools, I often tell students about an astronomer named Percival Lowell, who thought he spotted Martian "canals" through his small telescope back in the early 1900s. Do you think it’s possible that he saw these deep trails, leading him to the mistaken idea that the canals must have been dug by intelligent life, or Martians?!

November 21, 2011

What is that creature in this beautiful photograph? This animal is known as a "glass squid" (scientific name Leachia).  Sunlight filtering down through the ocean water passes right through the glass squid - it is practically invisible in the light. There are both squid and octopus like this, and they can "hide in plain sight" in sunny water.

However, they do not do so well down in the ocean deep, where there is no sunlight. Down in the deep, there are dangerous predator fish whose bodies produce a bright light that they shine directly on the transparent animals, which become visible in the predator’s "headlight."  The ability of these marine animals to produce their own light is called bioluminescence (BY-oh-loom-i-NESS-ens).

Somehow, their prey - the transparent squid and octopus -  need to have a way to camouflage themselves down in the deep. Researchers at Duke University decided to find out how they do it. They captured some of the squid and put them into a dish full of cold ocean water and shone bright lights on them. They were amazed to discover that the squid switched on their camouflage instantly, changing themselves from clear to a spotted, reddish brown. With that coloring, they can hide more easily in their dark, deep-sea environment. The researchers were amazed to see how quickly they make the change. 

If you are interested in seeing video of their experiment, click on the play button (at left) to see more.

November 16, 2011

Update for readers who were interested in our recent story, Rescued Spider Monkeys, about wild animals that are being illegally captured and sold. Nick News just did a half-hour special related to this subject, called DANGEROUS CROSSROADS: In a world where humans keep expanding their habitat, what happens when wild animals inhabit that same space? The special is now available online, so that you can watch it whenever you want to.

Click here to see some excellent reporting on this important topic for animal lovers.

November 7, 2011

I know that many of you are fascinated by volcanoes, and you will love today’s science news story. A city on the Atlantic cost of Spain has been completely evacuated, the port is closed to all ships and airplanes are banned from flying overhead, because of an underwater volcano that is threatening to erupt.

This is a submarine volcano ("sub" means under and "marine" means water).  You might be surprised to know that 75% of the magma (the hot, liquid rock found inside a volcano) that wells up from beneath the earth’s surface each year comes from submarine volcanoes, but think about it. Volcanoes are spread all over our planet, and about 70% of Earth is covered by water. So, it makes sense that most magma flows happen underwater.

The volcano first started to emerge on October 9 off El Hierro Island, and researchers from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO, Ministry of Science and Innovation) used cutting-edge scanners to quickly map its formation. The image at the top shows the underwater valley as it appeared in 1998. The image on the bottom shows the new formation, with the volcano crater clearly visible and a "tongue" of lava flow running down into the valley. 

"It is spectacular to see how what was once an underwater valley is now a volcanic cone with its descending lava tongue," said Juan Acosta, head of the research team.

Photo: Canary Regional Goverment handout / EPA

Graphic: ScienceDaily.com

October 26, 2011

Did you ever go to the beach and buy a plastic beach shovel for digging in the sand? A 6-year-old British girl named Emily Baldry took her beach shovel on an archeological trip with her family, and used it to dig up a 160-million year old fossil!

The 130-pound fossil that Emily found is called an ammonite. These now-extinct animals were soft-bodied invertebrates (animals without backbones) that lived inside a circular shell. They had long tentacles, well-developed eyes, and a sharp beaklike jaw. 

Ammonites lived during the periods of Earth history known as the Jurassic and Cretaceous, and disappeared at about the same time as the dinosaurs. Their closest modern relatives are the octopus and the squid.

The curled shell, which looks something like the horns of a ram, inspired the ammonite’s name. When these fossils were first discovered, in ancient times, they were named after the Egyptian god Ammon (or Amun), who was usually drawn with rams’ horns on his head.

Photo: SWNS

Graphic: MMVII NGHT, Inc.

October 21, 2011

A Labrador retriever suffering from smoke inhalation was saved this week by firefighters who carried him out of a burning house and gave him "mouth-to-snout" resuscitation.

When firefighters arrived at the fire in Wasau, Wisconsin, the owners told them that their dog was still inside. The rescuers rushed into the house and carried out the unconscious dog, named Koda. Firefighter Jamie Giese, who owns two dogs himself, said he told the other firefighters: "We’ve got to work this dog. (We) laid him down in the front yard, and we started assisting breathing.’‘

When Koda eventually regained consciousness, 

firefighters placed a human oxygen mask over his snout and rushed him to an animal emergency center for medical treatment.

The rescue was successful….Koda was returned safe and sound to his owners on Wednesday morning.

 Photos: Dan Young  /  Wausau Daily Herald

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