Seymour Simon's Blog, page 52

Silly Dino Featured App!

If you haven't tried Seymour Simon's SILLY DINOSAUR RIDDLES eBook yet, this could be the week! We are so pleased to be a Featured App in the Android Marketplace (thank you, Google!). And in honor of the occasion, we have lowered the price to $1.99.So, if you have an Android phone, pick up this very funny, eBook original today!

Video: What was that Light in the Sky?!

If you were in the Atlanta, Georgia area last Friday night around 10:45 pm, you might have seen an object brighter than a full moon streak across the sky. People watching reported seeing bright blue-green flashes, luminous sparkles, and distinct fireball-shadows. If you thought you saw a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object), you did…. but it's not "unidentified" any more. According to Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, it was a disintegrating piece of comet. "This icy, fragile object was about 6 feet (2 meters) wide, hit the atmosphere at a speed of 86,000 mph (38.5 kilometer per second), and completely disintegrated about 75 miles (60 km) above the ground." The comet was recorded by a NASA fireball camera at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, GA, which is how he was able to tell us what it was. Bill Cooke says that "It was the brightest event we've seen in the three year history of our meteor network." Here is the video. It is very short, but very bright, and comes to us courtesy of our Seymour Science favorite SpaceWeather.com website.Click here to see video from Seymour Science.

Tornadoes: What about the Animals?

It was amazing to watch people emerging, unhurt, from their storm cellars as we were watching television news last night of the latest powerful Oklahoma tornadoes. That got me thinking. What happens to all the animals when a tornado strikes? Rescuers searching for people trapped in the ruins often find animals, and say that frightened pets often wait until dark to sneak quietly out to look for their owners. In this photograph, taken after the devastating tornadoes that stuck in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, rescued kittens are waiting to be picked up their owners. More than 350 dogs, cats, birds, snakes, lizards and even a tarantula have already been found there. Dogs also go to work alongside the rescuers when disaster strikes. In this photo, a live-find dog named ChicoDog searches for survivors in the wreckage of a public housing complex in Joplin, Missouri. His partner is Kathleen Kelsey, a canine rescue specialist with the Missouri Task Force One search-and-rescue team. Kittens Photo: Dave Martin/APChicoDog Photo: Mark Schiefelbein / AP

Thanks to my friends at HarperCollins

Every year I go to a conference called the International Reading Association. It is a place where publishers show all of their books (and introduce their authors) to teachers from around the country. I was there last week with my wonderful colleagues from HarperCollins.This is me, signing books. There was such a long line, it wrapped around the booth and down the next aisle! These women do such a good job coordinating a very complicated schedule, and they always make sure to showcase my books and organize a signing. So, I want to say thank you to Patty Rosati, Laura Lutz, Robin Tordini and Stephanie for all the work they do to prepare for IRA. It is a pleasure to join you guys each year. Teachers, they also write a fun blog called The Page Turn, "an inside look at books for Teachers and Librarians." Check it out for lots of great inside information about authors and the latest books from HarperCollins.

Safety in Tornadoes

There is no such thing as being completely safe inside a tornado. And this is a very bad year for tornadoes in the United States. So far, nearly 50 deadly tornadoes have touched down in the United States in 2011. That's more than twice as much as the yearly average of killer tornadoes in years past. And it's only May. Photo: Charlie Riedel / AP The deadliest tornado in nearly 60 years and the second major deadly twister in a month struck Joplin, Missouri on Monday, May 23. The half-mile-wide twister blasted through the Missouri town killing more than 100 people and leveling thousands of buildings. The devastation was so complete that the city's south side has been nearly destroyed. There's not much that you can say about safety in a tornado that big and that strong. But MOST tornadoes are much weaker and CAN be survived. Listen to tornado forecasts and pay attention to the warnings. Here are some things to look for before a tornado arrives:The sky turns dark or greenish-black during the day.Dust or debris whirls on the ground under a cloud.Hail or heavy rain followed by either dead calm or a fast wind shift.Night: Small, bright flashes at ground level during a thunderstorm. This means power lines are being snapped by the winds.Funnel-shaped clouds may appear-but not always. Here's what to do:In a house with a basement, avoid windows and go to the basement.Get under a workbench or heavy table.Cover your whole body with a mattress of sleeping bag.KNOW where heavy objects are on the floor above (like a refrigerator) and don't go under them. They may fall through the weakened floor.In a house with no basement, avoid windows and go to the lowest floor to a small center room like a bathroom or closet. Cover yourself with some sort of padding.In a large building, go to the center of the building on the lowest floor possible. Then crouch down and cover your head. Stay off elevators.In a mobile home, get out! If your community has a tornado shelter, go there. Otherwise lie flat on the ground away from your home away from trees and cars. Cover your head with your hands.At school, follow the drill. Get to an inside hall or room. Crouch low, head down with your arms over your head.Cars and trucks are NOT safe during a tornado. Get out! Either seek shelter in a strong building or lie flat on the ground, face down, arms over your head. Remember that the best protection from most tornadoes comes from receiving and acting upon an early warning and knowing what to do in advance.

Which are the Biggest Snakes?

I received a letter this week from Hickory Hill Elementary School in Papillion, Nebraska. The third graders are asking a very good question, and I thought other readers might be interested in this, too. Dear Mr. Simon, My third graders just finished reading the bookGiant Snakesin a guided reading group and they had a question regarding the book. On page 16 it states, "Anacondas are the largest snakes on the world" and then on page 19 it says, "The Reticulated Pythons of Southeast Asia are the longest snake in the world." They are curious as to which one really is the biggest snake? JWe really appreciate your books and love the pictures! Thanks in advance for your help with our question!Hello, Third Graders! Good question. Anacondas are generally the largest (meaning heavier and wider, foot for foot) than pythons. But the Reticulated Pythons are the generally the longest (but not the biggest or largest) snakes in the world. So it all depends upon what you mean by big. Thanks for writing, and happy reading! READERS:Are you wondering how to add your own "comment" to this blog? Click here for exact directions on how to add a comment so you can become one of our Seymour Science writers! We also want you to be safe and not share too much information when you write on this blog, so please take a minute to read about how to stay safe on the Internet. We love to hear from you, so give "comments" a try!

Another Volcanic Eruption in Iceland

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!Iceland is one of the most activevolcanicregions in the world, because it Is located on both theIceland hotspotand 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 them and read about some of the earlier eruptons in my book VOLCANOES. Photo: Egill Adalsteinsson /EPA

Squid in Space

When the space shuttle Endeavour blasted off this week, it was carrying an unusual cargo: baby Bobtail Squid (Euprymna scolopes). Squid arecephalopods, a group of relatively intelligent animals that also includes octopuses. These baby squid are the first celaphods to travel into space.NASA hopes the squid will help us understand how "good" bacteria behave in the microgravity of space. AsJamie Fosterof the University of Florida in Gainesville, who is running the experiment, puts it: "Do good bacteria go bad?" We already know that disease microbes ("bad" bacteria) grow faster and become more dangerous if they are sent into space. Salmonellabacteria were sent up on a space shuttle in 2006, and when they returned to Earth they werealmost three times as likely to kill miceas normal. So far, we have only studied harmful bacteria in space. This time, the astronauts are going to run experiments that will enable us to look at good bacteria. The reason Foster chose these animals for his experiment is pretty interesting. Bobtail shrimp carry a whole colony of bacteria, called Vibrio fischeriin their bodies, stored in their "light organs." The squid use the bacteria to create light, which they shine out of their bodies and onto the ocean floor below. That way, they don't have a shadow, which makes it harder for predators to see them. Isn't that an interesting camouflage tactic? The experiment is simple. Newly hatched squid that don't yet have the bacteria in their light organs were placed in test tubes filled with seawater and sent up on the shuttle. Yesterday, an astronaut added the bacteria to their seawater. When they come back to earth, Dr. Foster and his research partners will study the squid and see if the bacteria grew normally, if they grew faster in a good way, or if there were problems. People often think that the space program is only about exploration. Of course, that is an important part of why we travel to space. But an equally important aspect of space travel is the opportunity to do experiments that we cannot do here on Earth. Science that we learn in space has many spin-offs back on our home planet. We have learned all kinds of new technologies. We have learned things that have helped us to learn about diseases, to better understand the functioning of the human body (including what causes "malfunctions"), and to develop new vaccines. These little squid will take us one step further in our understanding of the nature of life, and the interaction between different species. Photo: GenomeNewsNetwork.org

VIDEO: The Owl and the Pussycat

It's Thursday, so it is time for our favorite video of the week. Take a look at this highly unlikely, very special friendship between a black cat and a barn owl. They clearly love to play with each other!(Teachers and Librarians: This video is hosted on YouTube, which I know is blocked in many schools. Perhaps you can prescreen at home before recommending that students do the same? We try to avoid YouTube in general, but this video is just too wonderful to pass up! Thank you for understanding. Seymour)

Cool Photo of the Week

This is a Three-Toed Sloth (Bradypus tridactylus). Sloths are arboreal, which means that they live in trees. They are built to hang, using those long claws to get a good grip on branches.They are among the slowest moving creatures on Earth, spending about 18 hours a day hanging from a branch, sleeping. In fact, sloths move around so little that green algae grows on their furry coats! The algae works as camouflage because when a sleeping sloth is hanging from a branch, it looks like a bunch of leaves.Sloths even mate and give birth while hanging in the trees, and their babies travel by hanging onto their mothers for the first nine months of their lives. The three-toed sloth is anherbivore(a plant-eater) that eats at night, and it is about the size of a cat. They are endangered, due to the destruction of their tropical rainforest habitats in Central and South America.You can read more about Tropical Rainforests in my latest book, which is now also available as an eBook for the Nook Color and iPad. Photo: Christian Mehlführer READERS:Are you wondering how to add your own "comment" to this blog? Click here for exact directions on how to add a comment so you can become one of our Seymour Science writers! We also want you to be safe and not share too much information when you write on this blog, so please take a minute to read about how to stay safe on the Internet. We love to hear from you, so give "comments" a try!