Stan C. Smith's Blog, page 3
March 24, 2025
Amazing Animal Fact - Squirrel Migration
I took a walk a few days ago hoping to get good photos of the two squirrel species that live here, the gray squirrel and the fox squirrel (we also have flying squirrels, but they are nocturnal and extremely shy, so we've only seen one in all the years we've lived in Missouri).
At first glance, gray squirrels and fox squirrels look similar, but they differ in color, size, and preferred habitat. Fox squirrels are orangish in color and they weigh, on average, almost twice as much as gray squirrels. Fox squirrels prefer to live near forest edges, whereas gray squirrels prefer to be deep within the forest. To illustrate that, our house is surrounded by forest, so we see at least twenty gray squirrels for every one fox squirrel. To find a fox squirrel on my hike, I had to go to the lake shore a half mile away, where the forest opens up to a wide grassy shoreline. Fox squirrels love to look for food at this forest edge.
Here is a typical gray squirrel:
And here is the only fox squirrel I saw that day (notice the orange color):
Awesome Fact: Gray Squirrel Migration
I saw a social media post where someone mentioned that their grandfather told them stories about massive gray squirrel migrations in the eastern half of the United States, with huge swarms of millions of squirrels on the move. I was extremely skeptical of this because I have never seen more than a few squirrels together, and I certainly haven't seen masses of them crossing highways or swimming rivers.
So, I dug into this, and guess what—it's real. At least it used to happen. In 1811, Charles Joseph Labrobe wrote about a vast squirrel migration in Ohio: “A countless multitude of squirrels, obeying some great and universal impulse, which none can know but the Spirit that gave them being, left their reckless and gambolling life, and their ancient places of retreat in the north, and were seen pressing forward by tens of thousands in a deep and sober phalanx to the South...”
In Wisconsin in 1842, a gray squirrel migration lasted four weeks and involved nearly a half billion squirrels. Thousands of squirrels were even seen swimming all the way across the Mississippi River.
Similar events were documented throughout the 1800s, and the last really massive squirrel migration was in 1968.
What's up with that? Here's an explanation. Throughout history, some years had bumper crops of acorns and other food, resulting in a drastic increase of the squirrel population. Then, if the next year saw a big decline in nut production, millions of squirrels had to either starve or leave to find greener pastures (or nuttier forests).
So, why doesn't it happen anymore? Because the eastern half of the US no longer has vast regions of unbroken forest. The forests are now fragmented, and squirrel density is much lower than it used to be.
I'm afraid we'll probably never have an opportunity to see it, but how cool would it be to witness millions of squirrels on the move?
Photo Credits:
- Fox squirrel and gray squirrel - Stan C. Smith
- Migrating squirrels - Midjourney 6.1
At first glance, gray squirrels and fox squirrels look similar, but they differ in color, size, and preferred habitat. Fox squirrels are orangish in color and they weigh, on average, almost twice as much as gray squirrels. Fox squirrels prefer to live near forest edges, whereas gray squirrels prefer to be deep within the forest. To illustrate that, our house is surrounded by forest, so we see at least twenty gray squirrels for every one fox squirrel. To find a fox squirrel on my hike, I had to go to the lake shore a half mile away, where the forest opens up to a wide grassy shoreline. Fox squirrels love to look for food at this forest edge.
Here is a typical gray squirrel:
And here is the only fox squirrel I saw that day (notice the orange color):
Awesome Fact: Gray Squirrel Migration
I saw a social media post where someone mentioned that their grandfather told them stories about massive gray squirrel migrations in the eastern half of the United States, with huge swarms of millions of squirrels on the move. I was extremely skeptical of this because I have never seen more than a few squirrels together, and I certainly haven't seen masses of them crossing highways or swimming rivers.
So, I dug into this, and guess what—it's real. At least it used to happen. In 1811, Charles Joseph Labrobe wrote about a vast squirrel migration in Ohio: “A countless multitude of squirrels, obeying some great and universal impulse, which none can know but the Spirit that gave them being, left their reckless and gambolling life, and their ancient places of retreat in the north, and were seen pressing forward by tens of thousands in a deep and sober phalanx to the South...”
In Wisconsin in 1842, a gray squirrel migration lasted four weeks and involved nearly a half billion squirrels. Thousands of squirrels were even seen swimming all the way across the Mississippi River.
Similar events were documented throughout the 1800s, and the last really massive squirrel migration was in 1968.
What's up with that? Here's an explanation. Throughout history, some years had bumper crops of acorns and other food, resulting in a drastic increase of the squirrel population. Then, if the next year saw a big decline in nut production, millions of squirrels had to either starve or leave to find greener pastures (or nuttier forests).
So, why doesn't it happen anymore? Because the eastern half of the US no longer has vast regions of unbroken forest. The forests are now fragmented, and squirrel density is much lower than it used to be.
I'm afraid we'll probably never have an opportunity to see it, but how cool would it be to witness millions of squirrels on the move?
Photo Credits:
- Fox squirrel and gray squirrel - Stan C. Smith
- Migrating squirrels - Midjourney 6.1
Life's Great Mysteries - Is time travel possible?
Time travel is one of the most frequent themes in science fiction. In fact, I’ve written a number of novels involving time travel. People love to imagine what it would be like to travel back or forward in time. So, is time travel really possible?
Let’s consider the past first. I hate to say this, but currently there are few physics concepts that indicate traveling into the past will ever be possible. Well, there are some, but they are theoretical, with little hope of becoming practical things we can create and control. One example is to create a time curve—if a person follows the path, they would eventually find themselves back where they started. This was first shown to be mathematically possible in 1949, and many times since then. But there’s no evidence such a phenomenon actually exists anywhere in the universe.
A few other scenarios have been proposed. There’s a wild idea involving two cosmic strings moving past each other in opposite directions, thus creating a time curve looping around the strings. Another idea is wormholes, in which space-time can fold like a piece of paper. These sound great, but they are mathematical in nature and have not been observed to exist. The barriers to creating and controlling them are overwhelming, to say the least. So… time travel into the past is probably not within our reach.
Time travel to the future, on the other hand, is definitely possible. Yay!
Technically, we are already traveling into the future at one hour per hour. But you knew that already. How can we travel into the future faster than one hour per hour? It’s simple—all we have to do is move through space very fast.
According to Einstein’s Special Relativity theory, if you move through space at a really high speed (relative to other objects), time goes slower for you than for the people you left behind. This is called time dilation, and it’s an observable fact. It’s the reason the clocks on GPS satellites disagree with the clocks on Earth by seven millionths of a second for every day they are in orbit. Sergei Krikalev (a Russian cosmonaut) spent 803 days, 9 hours, 39 minutes orbiting our planet at 17,500 miles per hour. So, he traveled into his own future by 0.02 seconds.
The closer you get to the speed of light, the faster your time travel. Let’s say a 10-year-old boy leaves Earth in a spaceship traveling at 99.5% the speed of light, then returns to Earth after five years have passed on the spaceship. The boy would be 15 years old, but his classmates would now be 60 years old. From the boy’s perspective, only five years passed, but fifty years passed on Earth.
This is real time travel into the future. The problem is, the faster an object travels, not only does time pass faster, but the object also increases in mass (Special Relativity again), which means more fuel is needed to accelerate the object. At the speed of light, the object’s mass becomes infinite, which is why no physical object can travel the speed of light. With our current technology, we cannot accelerate any object to 99.5% the speed of light (or any velocity even close to that). So, while time travel into the future is certainly possible, it isn’t easy or practical.
But that doesn't stop me from thinking about time travel frequently.
Photo Credits:
- Time Travel image - Midjourney 6.1
Let’s consider the past first. I hate to say this, but currently there are few physics concepts that indicate traveling into the past will ever be possible. Well, there are some, but they are theoretical, with little hope of becoming practical things we can create and control. One example is to create a time curve—if a person follows the path, they would eventually find themselves back where they started. This was first shown to be mathematically possible in 1949, and many times since then. But there’s no evidence such a phenomenon actually exists anywhere in the universe.
A few other scenarios have been proposed. There’s a wild idea involving two cosmic strings moving past each other in opposite directions, thus creating a time curve looping around the strings. Another idea is wormholes, in which space-time can fold like a piece of paper. These sound great, but they are mathematical in nature and have not been observed to exist. The barriers to creating and controlling them are overwhelming, to say the least. So… time travel into the past is probably not within our reach.
Time travel to the future, on the other hand, is definitely possible. Yay!
Technically, we are already traveling into the future at one hour per hour. But you knew that already. How can we travel into the future faster than one hour per hour? It’s simple—all we have to do is move through space very fast.
According to Einstein’s Special Relativity theory, if you move through space at a really high speed (relative to other objects), time goes slower for you than for the people you left behind. This is called time dilation, and it’s an observable fact. It’s the reason the clocks on GPS satellites disagree with the clocks on Earth by seven millionths of a second for every day they are in orbit. Sergei Krikalev (a Russian cosmonaut) spent 803 days, 9 hours, 39 minutes orbiting our planet at 17,500 miles per hour. So, he traveled into his own future by 0.02 seconds.
The closer you get to the speed of light, the faster your time travel. Let’s say a 10-year-old boy leaves Earth in a spaceship traveling at 99.5% the speed of light, then returns to Earth after five years have passed on the spaceship. The boy would be 15 years old, but his classmates would now be 60 years old. From the boy’s perspective, only five years passed, but fifty years passed on Earth.
This is real time travel into the future. The problem is, the faster an object travels, not only does time pass faster, but the object also increases in mass (Special Relativity again), which means more fuel is needed to accelerate the object. At the speed of light, the object’s mass becomes infinite, which is why no physical object can travel the speed of light. With our current technology, we cannot accelerate any object to 99.5% the speed of light (or any velocity even close to that). So, while time travel into the future is certainly possible, it isn’t easy or practical.
But that doesn't stop me from thinking about time travel frequently.
Photo Credits:
- Time Travel image - Midjourney 6.1
February 21, 2025
Amazing Galaxy Stuff
A few months ago, before all the leaves fell from the trees and this ridiculously cold weather moved in, Trish and I were sitting on the deck, looking at the stars. I decided to take a few photos of the night sky with my iPhone, using night mode. The photos came out better than I expected (see the first photo).
What I like about this photo is that you can clearly see a portion of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It's the whitish blur from the lower left to the upper right. And of course all the closer stars dotting the sky are also part of the Milky Way galaxy (the orange blobs on the bottom and left are trees). Nothing brings out our sense of awe more than staring up at the vastness of space, right?
Here's a bit more information about the galaxy we inhabit. First, you may know galaxies are huge clusters of stars, bound together by gravity. According to current models, galaxies formed in the early stages of the universe, following the Big Bang. Our Milky Way is called a spiral galaxy because the stars are rotating around a dense center, forming spiral arms that look a bit like a pinwheel. The galaxies we've observed contain, on average, about 100 million stars each. BUT, this is just an average, and the variation is huge. Some dwarf galaxies contain less than a thousand stars, and some supergiant galaxies can contain a hundred trillion stars. Uh, this number makes my head spin. It's beyond comprehension.
Our Milky Way galaxy has at least a thousand times more stars than the average, containing somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars. Our sun (sometimes called Sol or Helios) is, of course, one of them.
Let's consider the dimensions of the Milky Way. A light year is the distance light travels in one year in the vacuum of space: 186,000 miles per second, or about 300,000 km per second. Light is pretty freaking fast, so a light year is pretty freaking far.
Like many galaxies, the Milky Way is shaped kind of like a disc. The disc is about 87,000 light years across. However, from top to bottom, it is only about 1,000 light years deep. And we (meaning Earth and the rest of our solar system) are about 27,000 light years out from the galaxy's center.
One last tidbit of info to blow your mind. Our galaxy is obviously unimaginably large. However, scientists estimate there are between 200 billion and 2 trillion galaxies within the observable universe.
Oh... in case you're wondering, the observable universe is a sphere with Earth at the center, and it includes everything we can see. In other words, every object close enough to us that light from the object has had time to reach Earth since the original expansion of the universe. This is not limited by our technology or telescopes, it is limited by the speed of light. Undoubtedly, there is much beyond the observable universe that we cannot see, simply because the light has not yet reached us.
Just for kicks, the second image is a set of photos, taken by the Hubble telescope, of a few of the gazillion other galaxies out there in space.
Photo Credits:
- Night sky - Stan C. Smith
- Collection of galaxy photos - NASA, ESA, ADAM G. RIESS (STSCI, JHU), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
What I like about this photo is that you can clearly see a portion of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It's the whitish blur from the lower left to the upper right. And of course all the closer stars dotting the sky are also part of the Milky Way galaxy (the orange blobs on the bottom and left are trees). Nothing brings out our sense of awe more than staring up at the vastness of space, right?
Here's a bit more information about the galaxy we inhabit. First, you may know galaxies are huge clusters of stars, bound together by gravity. According to current models, galaxies formed in the early stages of the universe, following the Big Bang. Our Milky Way is called a spiral galaxy because the stars are rotating around a dense center, forming spiral arms that look a bit like a pinwheel. The galaxies we've observed contain, on average, about 100 million stars each. BUT, this is just an average, and the variation is huge. Some dwarf galaxies contain less than a thousand stars, and some supergiant galaxies can contain a hundred trillion stars. Uh, this number makes my head spin. It's beyond comprehension.
Our Milky Way galaxy has at least a thousand times more stars than the average, containing somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars. Our sun (sometimes called Sol or Helios) is, of course, one of them.
Let's consider the dimensions of the Milky Way. A light year is the distance light travels in one year in the vacuum of space: 186,000 miles per second, or about 300,000 km per second. Light is pretty freaking fast, so a light year is pretty freaking far.
Like many galaxies, the Milky Way is shaped kind of like a disc. The disc is about 87,000 light years across. However, from top to bottom, it is only about 1,000 light years deep. And we (meaning Earth and the rest of our solar system) are about 27,000 light years out from the galaxy's center.
One last tidbit of info to blow your mind. Our galaxy is obviously unimaginably large. However, scientists estimate there are between 200 billion and 2 trillion galaxies within the observable universe.
Oh... in case you're wondering, the observable universe is a sphere with Earth at the center, and it includes everything we can see. In other words, every object close enough to us that light from the object has had time to reach Earth since the original expansion of the universe. This is not limited by our technology or telescopes, it is limited by the speed of light. Undoubtedly, there is much beyond the observable universe that we cannot see, simply because the light has not yet reached us.
Just for kicks, the second image is a set of photos, taken by the Hubble telescope, of a few of the gazillion other galaxies out there in space.
Photo Credits:
- Night sky - Stan C. Smith
- Collection of galaxy photos - NASA, ESA, ADAM G. RIESS (STSCI, JHU), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
February 4, 2025
Awesome Animal Fact - Did you know scorpions glow under UV light?
First, in case you don't know, scorpions belong in an order of arachnids (spiders and kin), with 2,500 species around the world, on every continent except Antarctica. Scorpions have been around for 435 million years. They mostly live in desert regions, but some are adapted to other environments, including the striped bark scorpion that lives here in Missouri. The first photo is a striped bark scorpion I found under a rock near our home.
The second photo is another striped bark scorpion, this one under a blacklight, which emits ultraviolet light. Scorpions glow a vibrant blue color in UV light, which can come from an artificial blacklight or from natural moonlight.
But how? And why? Let's figure this out.
Interestingly, each time a scorpion sheds its exoskeleton, the scorpion doesn't glow like this until the new exoskeleton hardens. There is a biofluorescent chemical in the exoskeleton that glows, but that chemical doesn't appear there until the shell hardens (which takes about 90 minutes). The chemical could be a by-product of the hardening process, or it could be secreted soon after the shell hardens. We don't know for sure.
Anyway, the bioflourescent chemical absorbs UV light, then re-emits it as visible blue light.
That's the how. Now let's consider the why. Well, no one is really sure why scorpions glow in UV light. One idea is that it helps scorpions find each other. Another idea is that it might confuse their prey, making it easier for them to hunt.
A particularly intriguing idea (my favorite) is that the bioluminescent material makes the scorpion's entire body a kind of eye, to help the animal avoid sunlight. In general, scorpions avoid sunlight and moonlight (which is sunlight reflected off the moon). Scorpions are nocturnal, and they are much less active on moonlit nights. If the scorpion's body detects very much UV light (and therefore glows), this tells the scorpion to stay underground instead of hunting.
Photo Credits:
- Striped Bark Scorpion (daylight) - Stan C. Smith
- Striped Bark Scorpion (blacklight) - DepositPhotos
The second photo is another striped bark scorpion, this one under a blacklight, which emits ultraviolet light. Scorpions glow a vibrant blue color in UV light, which can come from an artificial blacklight or from natural moonlight.
But how? And why? Let's figure this out.
Interestingly, each time a scorpion sheds its exoskeleton, the scorpion doesn't glow like this until the new exoskeleton hardens. There is a biofluorescent chemical in the exoskeleton that glows, but that chemical doesn't appear there until the shell hardens (which takes about 90 minutes). The chemical could be a by-product of the hardening process, or it could be secreted soon after the shell hardens. We don't know for sure.
Anyway, the bioflourescent chemical absorbs UV light, then re-emits it as visible blue light.
That's the how. Now let's consider the why. Well, no one is really sure why scorpions glow in UV light. One idea is that it helps scorpions find each other. Another idea is that it might confuse their prey, making it easier for them to hunt.
A particularly intriguing idea (my favorite) is that the bioluminescent material makes the scorpion's entire body a kind of eye, to help the animal avoid sunlight. In general, scorpions avoid sunlight and moonlight (which is sunlight reflected off the moon). Scorpions are nocturnal, and they are much less active on moonlit nights. If the scorpion's body detects very much UV light (and therefore glows), this tells the scorpion to stay underground instead of hunting.
Photo Credits:
- Striped Bark Scorpion (daylight) - Stan C. Smith
- Striped Bark Scorpion (blacklight) - DepositPhotos
January 16, 2025
Life's Great Mysteries - Does light weigh anything?
Caution: Mind-bending concepts ahead...
Perhaps you’ve heard of light sails (or solar sails). These are huge parachute-like sails that can be expanded in space to allow the pressure from light emitted from the sun to propel a spacecraft. The first spacecraft to demonstrate that this actually works was the Japanese craft IKAROS in 2010. Think about how odd this seems—light emitted by the sun can actually push something. This must mean that light must weigh something, right?
Well, first it’s important to understand the difference between weight and mass. MASS is the total amount of matter, or stuff, an object contains. WEIGHT is the force of gravity on an object. I typically weigh 190 pounds (86 kg). On Earth, my weight and my mass are the same—190 pounds. But, if I go to the moon, where there is less gravity, my weight and mass are no longer the same. My mass is still 190 pounds, but my weight is only 32 pounds. On Mars, my mass is still 190 pounds, but I weigh 72 pounds. Remember, mass is how much stuff there is in an object, so mass does not change in situations with different gravity. Weight does change.
Light is made up of photons, and photons do not have mass. So, a simple answer to this question is NO… light does not have mass, and therefore it does not have weight. But things aren’t that simple. Light actually has momentum (if you’re wondering how something without mass can have momentum, that’s beyond my ability to explain… it has to do with the fact that light also has energy… light is kind of weird). Anyway, light does indeed have momentum, and it can exert pressure on a surface. This is why light sails work. This is why, when I stand in direct sunlight, I weigh slightly more than when I stand in the shade. The sunlight from above pushes me downward with a slight amount of force. On a sunny day, the city of Chicago weighs 140 kilograms more than at night, simply because sunlight is pushing down on it.
Here’s a tidbit that blows my mind: If you captured all the sunlight falling on Chicago in any moment and put that sunlight in a box that has perfect mirrors on the inner walls—mirrors that reflect 100% of the light so that the photons are continually reflected back and forth in the box, the box would then weigh 140 kg more than it did before. And in space, where the box has mass but no weight, more force would be required to accelerate the box. So, this seems like light has mass, right? Not exactly. Because it is the energy and momentum of the light that causes this to happen. Instead of saying the light in the box has mass, it is more accurate to say the light in the box contributes to the total mass of the box.
What a weird and wonderful universe we live in!
(this is a conceptual image of a spaceship with a solar sail)
Photo Credits:
- Ship with solar sail - Midjourney v. 6.1
Perhaps you’ve heard of light sails (or solar sails). These are huge parachute-like sails that can be expanded in space to allow the pressure from light emitted from the sun to propel a spacecraft. The first spacecraft to demonstrate that this actually works was the Japanese craft IKAROS in 2010. Think about how odd this seems—light emitted by the sun can actually push something. This must mean that light must weigh something, right?
Well, first it’s important to understand the difference between weight and mass. MASS is the total amount of matter, or stuff, an object contains. WEIGHT is the force of gravity on an object. I typically weigh 190 pounds (86 kg). On Earth, my weight and my mass are the same—190 pounds. But, if I go to the moon, where there is less gravity, my weight and mass are no longer the same. My mass is still 190 pounds, but my weight is only 32 pounds. On Mars, my mass is still 190 pounds, but I weigh 72 pounds. Remember, mass is how much stuff there is in an object, so mass does not change in situations with different gravity. Weight does change.
Light is made up of photons, and photons do not have mass. So, a simple answer to this question is NO… light does not have mass, and therefore it does not have weight. But things aren’t that simple. Light actually has momentum (if you’re wondering how something without mass can have momentum, that’s beyond my ability to explain… it has to do with the fact that light also has energy… light is kind of weird). Anyway, light does indeed have momentum, and it can exert pressure on a surface. This is why light sails work. This is why, when I stand in direct sunlight, I weigh slightly more than when I stand in the shade. The sunlight from above pushes me downward with a slight amount of force. On a sunny day, the city of Chicago weighs 140 kilograms more than at night, simply because sunlight is pushing down on it.
Here’s a tidbit that blows my mind: If you captured all the sunlight falling on Chicago in any moment and put that sunlight in a box that has perfect mirrors on the inner walls—mirrors that reflect 100% of the light so that the photons are continually reflected back and forth in the box, the box would then weigh 140 kg more than it did before. And in space, where the box has mass but no weight, more force would be required to accelerate the box. So, this seems like light has mass, right? Not exactly. Because it is the energy and momentum of the light that causes this to happen. Instead of saying the light in the box has mass, it is more accurate to say the light in the box contributes to the total mass of the box.
What a weird and wonderful universe we live in!
(this is a conceptual image of a spaceship with a solar sail)
Photo Credits:
- Ship with solar sail - Midjourney v. 6.1
January 7, 2025
All about The Sphere...
Trish and I recently spent a week at the Author Nation conference in Las Vegas. We were so busy learning and being inspired by other authors that we hardly even had time to leave the hotel. However, our room had a great view of the skyline, including the amazing new structure called The Sphere.
This beautiful but rather gaudy structure is a wonder of technological achievement, so I thought you might want to know some interesting facts about it.
First, The Sphere is the largest spherical building in the world, at 366 feet (111 m) tall and 516 feet (157 m) wide. For reference, the Statue of Liberty (including the statue and the pedestal) is 306 feet tall and could easily fit inside The Sphere. To position the pieces, they used the fourth largest crane in the world, which had to be brought from Belgium for this job.
The exterior shell is actually an elaborate spherical video screen, consisting of 1.2 million programmable LEDs. That's 580,000 square feet (53,880 square m) of screen. The videos are clearly visible even in daylight. And, from what we could tell, the videos run 24 hours a day. Of course, Vegas is illuminated by countless other gaudy light displays, so what's another 1.2 million more?
Although I haven't seen the inside, it's supposedly just as impressive, if not even more so. The inside is a concert stadium with 18,600 seats, and with standing room for another 20,000 people. Get this... 10,000 of those seats are extra special. They provide an immersive experience, with specialized sound systems, haptic seats that make the guests “feel” sound vibrations, and machines that create wind, temperature, and even scent effects. I'm not even kidding.
Yes, there's a concert stage, but the interior screen is the highest resolution screen in the world (268 million video pixels with 16K resolution). Supposedly, this makes it ten times clearer than the best HD TVs on the market today. To make sure the concerts are loud enough, there are 1,586 loudspeakers.
So, you might be thinking... Cool, I want to experience it! Or maybe... Yuck, that's too much light and sound!
At least now you know more about it.
This beautiful but rather gaudy structure is a wonder of technological achievement, so I thought you might want to know some interesting facts about it.
First, The Sphere is the largest spherical building in the world, at 366 feet (111 m) tall and 516 feet (157 m) wide. For reference, the Statue of Liberty (including the statue and the pedestal) is 306 feet tall and could easily fit inside The Sphere. To position the pieces, they used the fourth largest crane in the world, which had to be brought from Belgium for this job.
The exterior shell is actually an elaborate spherical video screen, consisting of 1.2 million programmable LEDs. That's 580,000 square feet (53,880 square m) of screen. The videos are clearly visible even in daylight. And, from what we could tell, the videos run 24 hours a day. Of course, Vegas is illuminated by countless other gaudy light displays, so what's another 1.2 million more?
Although I haven't seen the inside, it's supposedly just as impressive, if not even more so. The inside is a concert stadium with 18,600 seats, and with standing room for another 20,000 people. Get this... 10,000 of those seats are extra special. They provide an immersive experience, with specialized sound systems, haptic seats that make the guests “feel” sound vibrations, and machines that create wind, temperature, and even scent effects. I'm not even kidding.
Yes, there's a concert stage, but the interior screen is the highest resolution screen in the world (268 million video pixels with 16K resolution). Supposedly, this makes it ten times clearer than the best HD TVs on the market today. To make sure the concerts are loud enough, there are 1,586 loudspeakers.
So, you might be thinking... Cool, I want to experience it! Or maybe... Yuck, that's too much light and sound!
At least now you know more about it.
Life's great Mysteries - Why is Greenwich the official timekeeper for the whole world?
Seriously, who made this town in England the boss of time? And why? Let’s start with some history. Throughout most of human history, the best way humans could keep track of time was to look up at the sun and make an estimate based on its position. Eventually, clocks were invented, dramatically improving punctuality. By the 1800s, clocks and pocket watches were accurate to within less than a second. The problem was, people in different places set their clocks differently, usually based on when the sun would set or rise. The result? Times were different in different places, and when people traveled, they would have to reset their watches whenever they arrived at a destination, to match the local time.
This got to be a serious problem in the 1800s when railroads became a popular way to travel. Imagine trying to run a complex schedule of arrival and departure times when each location had clocks that were slightly out of synch with other locations. A lot of people missed their trains because their own clocks were different from the railways’ clocks.
In the 1850s, countries in Europe decided to establish a standard time, such as London time for all of England, and Rouen time for France. However, the USA was so large that, on November 18, 1883, the US adopted four time zones, which were meticulously established by a group of railroad operators. Each time zone had a standard time that everyone could set their clocks to.
Well, that’s fine and dandy, but it did not meet the need for a standard global time. So, in 1884, the US held the International Meridian Conference in Washington D.C. Experts from dozens of countries attended, and the group selected the global prime meridian (a prime meridian is an arbitrarily chosen line of longitude defined as zero degrees) as the starting point to measure all time zones. This line of longitude passes through Greenwich, England, so it’s also called the Greenwich Meridian.
Why choose the Greenwich Meridian to start all time zones? Because, for centuries, Greenwich was home of the Royal Observatory. The clock there was already being used to set the official London time. At that time, the British Empire had a huge impact on international shipping, and the British had created countless sea charts and schedules based on Greenwich Mean Time that were already used by mariners from many countries. So, it seemed a natural choice for the entire world to set all clocks based on Greenwich Mean Time.
Then, of course, people had to go and mess everything up with pesky daylight savings time nonsense.
This got to be a serious problem in the 1800s when railroads became a popular way to travel. Imagine trying to run a complex schedule of arrival and departure times when each location had clocks that were slightly out of synch with other locations. A lot of people missed their trains because their own clocks were different from the railways’ clocks.
In the 1850s, countries in Europe decided to establish a standard time, such as London time for all of England, and Rouen time for France. However, the USA was so large that, on November 18, 1883, the US adopted four time zones, which were meticulously established by a group of railroad operators. Each time zone had a standard time that everyone could set their clocks to.
Well, that’s fine and dandy, but it did not meet the need for a standard global time. So, in 1884, the US held the International Meridian Conference in Washington D.C. Experts from dozens of countries attended, and the group selected the global prime meridian (a prime meridian is an arbitrarily chosen line of longitude defined as zero degrees) as the starting point to measure all time zones. This line of longitude passes through Greenwich, England, so it’s also called the Greenwich Meridian.
Why choose the Greenwich Meridian to start all time zones? Because, for centuries, Greenwich was home of the Royal Observatory. The clock there was already being used to set the official London time. At that time, the British Empire had a huge impact on international shipping, and the British had created countless sea charts and schedules based on Greenwich Mean Time that were already used by mariners from many countries. So, it seemed a natural choice for the entire world to set all clocks based on Greenwich Mean Time.
Then, of course, people had to go and mess everything up with pesky daylight savings time nonsense.
November 24, 2024
Great Mysteries of Life - Why do people say "It's raining cats and dogs"?
In my previous post, I went down a deep rabbit hole by exploring reports of raining fish and frogs. That really does happen (though always with a plausible scientific explanation).
But what about when people say it’s raining cats and dogs? Where did that come from? Has it ever actually rained cats and dogs? Almost certainly not, but I still find the saying to be interesting.
The first recorded use of the phrase was in 1651, in a poetry collection by British poet Henry Vaughan. A year after that, the British playwright Richard Brome included this line in one of his comic plays: “It shall rain dogs and polecats.”
The phrase didn’t become popular, though, until 1738, when Jonathan Swift wrote a satire in which one of his characters feared it would “rain cats and dogs.”
But this doesn’t really explain why this particular phrase became popular. Why specifically cats and dogs? One hypothesis comes from etymologists—people who study the origins of words. The Norse god of storms, Odin, was often depicted alongside dogs and wolves, which at that time were symbols for wind. Also, witches were thought to ride their broomsticks during storms, and they were often depicted with black cats. The black cats therefore became signs of approaching rain for sailors. So, “raining cats and dogs” may have been a way to refer to a storm with wind (dogs) and heavy rain (cats).
In my opinion, though, a more likely origin of the phrase might be indicated by something else that Jonathan Swift wrote. In 1710, he wrote a poem called “City Shower.” Many cities had poor drainage in those days, and the poem describes the flooding that would occur after heavy rains, and how the flooding left dead animals in the streets. So, I’m going with the explanation that these dead animals led people to describe the storm as “raining cats and dogs.”
Okay, I'm now satisfied I have fully explored the weird notion of animals raining from the heavens. I shall pontificate on this matter no further.
Image credit: Midjourney 6.1
But what about when people say it’s raining cats and dogs? Where did that come from? Has it ever actually rained cats and dogs? Almost certainly not, but I still find the saying to be interesting.
The first recorded use of the phrase was in 1651, in a poetry collection by British poet Henry Vaughan. A year after that, the British playwright Richard Brome included this line in one of his comic plays: “It shall rain dogs and polecats.”
The phrase didn’t become popular, though, until 1738, when Jonathan Swift wrote a satire in which one of his characters feared it would “rain cats and dogs.”
But this doesn’t really explain why this particular phrase became popular. Why specifically cats and dogs? One hypothesis comes from etymologists—people who study the origins of words. The Norse god of storms, Odin, was often depicted alongside dogs and wolves, which at that time were symbols for wind. Also, witches were thought to ride their broomsticks during storms, and they were often depicted with black cats. The black cats therefore became signs of approaching rain for sailors. So, “raining cats and dogs” may have been a way to refer to a storm with wind (dogs) and heavy rain (cats).
In my opinion, though, a more likely origin of the phrase might be indicated by something else that Jonathan Swift wrote. In 1710, he wrote a poem called “City Shower.” Many cities had poor drainage in those days, and the poem describes the flooding that would occur after heavy rains, and how the flooding left dead animals in the streets. So, I’m going with the explanation that these dead animals led people to describe the storm as “raining cats and dogs.”
Okay, I'm now satisfied I have fully explored the weird notion of animals raining from the heavens. I shall pontificate on this matter no further.
Image credit: Midjourney 6.1
November 16, 2024
Life's Great Mysteries - Does it really rain frogs? Or fish?
I went down a rabbit hole with this one, so bear with me... it'll be worth the time it takes to read it.
All the way back to ancient civilizations, people have reported seeing frogs and fish rain from the sky. And other animals, like rats, iguanas, bats, and spiders. I’ve always wanted to know why people would make such an obviously outrageous claim. I mean, even if I saw it happening, I would think twice about going around telling people what I saw. They would think I was crazy. So, why have people made these claims throughout history?
One explanation, at least with frogs, is that, after emerging from their houses after a heavy storm and seeing frogs everywhere, people made the assumption the frogs fell from the sky during the storm.
The 1999 movie Magnolia (considered by many to be a cinematic masterpiece) has a famous—and rather graphic—scene where thousands of large frogs fall from the sky. To most viewers, it was confusing, but the movie critics claimed it was the perfect ending. Go figure. Anyway, the movie was obviously fiction.
Here are some things we know for real. Ernest Agee from Purdue University said, “A tornadic waterspout is merely a tornado that forms over land and travels over the water. I’ve seen small ponds literally emptied of their water by a passing tornado. So, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for frogs (or other living things) to ‘rain’ from the skies.” So, waterspouts are likely to be the source of some of the reports of such things.
In 1873, it actually rained frogs in Kansas City, and a Scientific American article concluded it was likely due to a tornado.
In 1882, in Dubuque, Iowa, there was a frog hail storm, in which frozen frogs fell from the sky during a storm. Scientists concluded a powerful updraft must have carried frogs high into the atmosphere, where they turned into frogcicles and eventually fell onto the heads of puzzled Dubuque residents.
In 1947, a biologist from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife was eating at a restaurant in Marksville, Louisiana. A waitress came up to him and said fish were falling from the sky. Later, he wrote: “There were spots on Main Street, in the vicinity of the bank, averaging one fish per square yard. Automobiles and trucks were running over them. Fish also fell on the roofs of houses… I personally collected from Main Street and several yards on Monroe Street, a large jar of perfect specimens and preserved them in formalin, in order to distribute them among various museums.” Keep in mind this was actually a biologist saying this.
In 2005, thousands of frogs rained on a small town in northwestern Serbia. Almost laughably, a local climatologist, named Slavisa Ignjatovic, described the phenomenon as “not very unusual.” Why? Because, as he explained, the strong winds that accompanied the storm could have easily picked up the frogs.
In 2010, the people of the small Australian town of Lajamanu witnessed hundreds of spangled perch falling from the sky. Christine Balmer, who was walking home when the rain and fish started falling, said, “These fish fell in their hundreds and hundreds all over the place. The locals were running around everywhere to pick them up.”
In June of 2022, in San Francisco, anchovies rained from above. In this case, the weather was clear, and the falling fish appeared to have been chewed on. Scientists concluded this phenomenon was a result of an unusually productive year for the anchovy population, and sea birds were catching them and accidentally dropping some while flying.
A similar incident happened in Texarkana, Texas in 2021, but in this case a large flock of cormorants were disgorging their recent meal of shad while flying. The yacked-up shad were on the ground over an area of nine square miles.
So, there we have it. It does occasionally rain frogs and fish, and we have reasonable scientific explanations for almost every event. Below is a woodcut from a book titled Prodigiorum ac Ostentorum Chronicon, published in 1557, one of the first books specifically about strange phenomena. The woodcut depicts a reported raining of frogs that took place in Scandanavia.
Image credit
- Raining frogs woodcut - Konrad Lykosthenes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
All the way back to ancient civilizations, people have reported seeing frogs and fish rain from the sky. And other animals, like rats, iguanas, bats, and spiders. I’ve always wanted to know why people would make such an obviously outrageous claim. I mean, even if I saw it happening, I would think twice about going around telling people what I saw. They would think I was crazy. So, why have people made these claims throughout history?
One explanation, at least with frogs, is that, after emerging from their houses after a heavy storm and seeing frogs everywhere, people made the assumption the frogs fell from the sky during the storm.
The 1999 movie Magnolia (considered by many to be a cinematic masterpiece) has a famous—and rather graphic—scene where thousands of large frogs fall from the sky. To most viewers, it was confusing, but the movie critics claimed it was the perfect ending. Go figure. Anyway, the movie was obviously fiction.
Here are some things we know for real. Ernest Agee from Purdue University said, “A tornadic waterspout is merely a tornado that forms over land and travels over the water. I’ve seen small ponds literally emptied of their water by a passing tornado. So, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for frogs (or other living things) to ‘rain’ from the skies.” So, waterspouts are likely to be the source of some of the reports of such things.
In 1873, it actually rained frogs in Kansas City, and a Scientific American article concluded it was likely due to a tornado.
In 1882, in Dubuque, Iowa, there was a frog hail storm, in which frozen frogs fell from the sky during a storm. Scientists concluded a powerful updraft must have carried frogs high into the atmosphere, where they turned into frogcicles and eventually fell onto the heads of puzzled Dubuque residents.
In 1947, a biologist from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife was eating at a restaurant in Marksville, Louisiana. A waitress came up to him and said fish were falling from the sky. Later, he wrote: “There were spots on Main Street, in the vicinity of the bank, averaging one fish per square yard. Automobiles and trucks were running over them. Fish also fell on the roofs of houses… I personally collected from Main Street and several yards on Monroe Street, a large jar of perfect specimens and preserved them in formalin, in order to distribute them among various museums.” Keep in mind this was actually a biologist saying this.
In 2005, thousands of frogs rained on a small town in northwestern Serbia. Almost laughably, a local climatologist, named Slavisa Ignjatovic, described the phenomenon as “not very unusual.” Why? Because, as he explained, the strong winds that accompanied the storm could have easily picked up the frogs.
In 2010, the people of the small Australian town of Lajamanu witnessed hundreds of spangled perch falling from the sky. Christine Balmer, who was walking home when the rain and fish started falling, said, “These fish fell in their hundreds and hundreds all over the place. The locals were running around everywhere to pick them up.”
In June of 2022, in San Francisco, anchovies rained from above. In this case, the weather was clear, and the falling fish appeared to have been chewed on. Scientists concluded this phenomenon was a result of an unusually productive year for the anchovy population, and sea birds were catching them and accidentally dropping some while flying.
A similar incident happened in Texarkana, Texas in 2021, but in this case a large flock of cormorants were disgorging their recent meal of shad while flying. The yacked-up shad were on the ground over an area of nine square miles.
So, there we have it. It does occasionally rain frogs and fish, and we have reasonable scientific explanations for almost every event. Below is a woodcut from a book titled Prodigiorum ac Ostentorum Chronicon, published in 1557, one of the first books specifically about strange phenomena. The woodcut depicts a reported raining of frogs that took place in Scandanavia.
Image credit
- Raining frogs woodcut - Konrad Lykosthenes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
November 10, 2024
In our neck of the woods... Oak leaves
Many of the leaves have fallen now, but a few weeks ago, when Trish and I were sitting on our deck, I was staring at the leaves at the top of a nearby oak tree. Then I stared at the leaves at the bottom, then again I stared at the top. This is when I had an epiphany—in the category of Stan-discovers-something-all-true-botanists-probably-already-know.
What did I discover? The leaves at the top of the tree are skinnier (less surface area) than those at the bottom of the tree. The difference is striking. So, I took two photos of leaves on the same tree. This first photo is leaves at the top.
And this second photos is leaves at the bottom of the same tree:
See what I mean? What's up with that?
Well, although I was proud of myself for making this acute observation, this was already a well-known phenomenon. There are several reasons the top leaves of tall plants have less surface area than the bottom leaves.
The leaves at the top are in direct sunlight, whereas those at the bottom are shaded by the upper leaves. With smaller leaves at the top, more sunshine can get to the leaves at the bottom. And the larger leaves at the bottom can grab more of the light filtering through the top leaves. It's an equity issue, you see. The lower leaves can do their share of photosynthesis this way.
There's another reason too. The top leaves are exposed to more direct sun and more wind, so they evaporate away more water. By having less surface area, they lose less of the precious water the tree needs to survive. At the bottom of the tree, the leaves are shaded, there is less wind, and the air is more humid. So, those leaves can be larger without evaporating away too much water.
These kinds of adaptations always fascinate me, even if I'm late to the party.
What did I discover? The leaves at the top of the tree are skinnier (less surface area) than those at the bottom of the tree. The difference is striking. So, I took two photos of leaves on the same tree. This first photo is leaves at the top.
And this second photos is leaves at the bottom of the same tree:
See what I mean? What's up with that?Well, although I was proud of myself for making this acute observation, this was already a well-known phenomenon. There are several reasons the top leaves of tall plants have less surface area than the bottom leaves.
The leaves at the top are in direct sunlight, whereas those at the bottom are shaded by the upper leaves. With smaller leaves at the top, more sunshine can get to the leaves at the bottom. And the larger leaves at the bottom can grab more of the light filtering through the top leaves. It's an equity issue, you see. The lower leaves can do their share of photosynthesis this way.
There's another reason too. The top leaves are exposed to more direct sun and more wind, so they evaporate away more water. By having less surface area, they lose less of the precious water the tree needs to survive. At the bottom of the tree, the leaves are shaded, there is less wind, and the air is more humid. So, those leaves can be larger without evaporating away too much water.
These kinds of adaptations always fascinate me, even if I'm late to the party.
