Seymour Simon's Blog, page 58

Dear readers, I have encouraged many of you to download and enjoy my mobile phone app, SCIENCE FUN TO GO. The app is free, but it also offers users the option to purchase Seymour Simon eBooks which they download to their phones. We have been so pleased that some of you were willing to purchase and try out this new concept of mobile books. However, owners of the app discovered that it stopped working this past Monday, 3/28. The company that created the app experienced a system outage on the server that stores the data, and four days later, the app is still not working properly. Many of you have found that either you cannot launch it at all, or if you have deleted the app and re-installed it, your books may no longer be there or you are asked to purchase them again. This is a completely unacceptable experience, for which I take full responsibility. As an author whose books are often used in schools, I hold myself to the highest standard and work to create top quality products which Parents, Teachers, Librarians can trust. At the moment, the SCIENCE FUN TO GO app is not living up to that standard. Please rest assured that anyone who has purchased a book that is currently unavailable will have that book restored to them at no additional cost. And thank you for bearing with us as we try to sort out these vexing technical issues. Seymour Simon

Did you ever have a hermit crab as a pet? Lots of kids do. Part of the responsibility of owning a hermit crab is making sure it has a larger shell available when it outgrows the one it came in. What you've probably never seen is what happens in the wild. Researchers in Belize discovered that when one crab finds a suitable empty shell, it waits until a crowd of other crabs join it. Then they climb, piggyback-style, onto each others' shells, in a line from largest to the smallest. Once the first crab squeezes into the free shell, then the whole line follows, right down the row. Photograph of Hermit Crab swapping shells ©www.osfimages.com

A 12-year-old sixth grader named Meeps, from Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, sent me this original poem after I Skyped with a class there. Hasn't Meeps done a good job of capturing the feelings of numbness and loss that we have seen in the faces of people in photographs of the recent earthquakes in Japan and Christchurch, New Zealand? This is a very good piece of writing. Photograph: Aftermath of 1989 earthquake in Loma Prieta, California courtesy of U.S. Geological Service/C.E. Meyer

Did you ever have an itch in the middle of your back that you just couldn't wait to scratch? If no one was around to help, maybe you even backed up against a doorframe, or against a piece of furniture, and scratched your back against that. This black bear solved the problem by backing up and scratching his back against a tree! It looks like it feels good, doesn't it? Wildlife photographer James A. Galleto won an award for this photograph, which he captured with some smart planning. "This black bear repeatedly scent-marked this particular tree," said Galleto, "so I positioned myself nearby and waited." Sure enough, he got this wonderful shot of a bear in need of a back scratcher. This is our Cool Photo of the Week, and you can count on a new "cool photo" every Tuesday here on SeymourSimon.com. Photograph:Nature's Best Photography / James A. Galletto

This week I received letters from Chonlatorn S. and Alejandro D., both students at Rue Elementary School in Council Bluffs, Iowa. They had just read my book, ANIMALS NOBODY LOVES, and they were writing to defend the octopus, coyote, and other animals they think should not be in this book because they are not dangerous to humans. Chanlatorn wrote: "When skunks are in danger they will spray on you. They don't bite you." I agree with both of these readers that no one needs to be afraid of these animals. In fact, that is one of the reasons I wrote the book!Let me tell you about two Texas students I met last month who really go to extraordinary lengths to teach other students about "animals that nobody loves." Courtney (14) and Erik (12) are homeschooled, and I met them when they came to one of my presentations at a local school. This sister and brother work with an entomologist (pronounced en-toh-MAH-loh-gist, a scientist who specializes in the study of insects) and have started their own business, calledNOT SO CREEPY CRITTERS. Courtney and Erik, pictured above, told me that this all started because they wanted to help other kids get over feelings of arachnophobia (ah-RACK-no-FO-bia, meaning "fear of spiders"). Spiders do much more good than harm, eating insects that damage crops and other plants. And as Courtney and Erik have learned, some of them even make interesting pets! This brother and sister team do presentations in classrooms and at kid events, and they introduce their audience to a wide variety of "not so creepy creatures." Their traveling menagerie of live creatures includes 4 colorful tarantulas, 2 different scorpion species, Bearded Dragon, centipede,a snake, Leopard Gecko, Blue-Tongued Skink, Peppered Roaches and Madagascar Hissing Roaches! Last summer they wrote a book, and they are working hard to continue growing their business. They tell me that fainting goats and chickens are next on their list! Courtney and Eric are well-mannered, dedicated defenders of creepy critters, and they have also built a very informative and interesting website. Check out the section called Arachnids for lots of fascinating spider photographs, and Critter Facts, where you are challenged to decide whether a statement is a fact, or simply an opinion.

I very much enjoyed my Skype session this morning with some of the students at Cavallini Middle School in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. They have been studying non-fiction writing, and 20 students were well-prepared with good questions. Nice job, and a great way to start my day! I thought I'd share one of the answers with you. A student asked me: if I had not become a writer, what would I have done? Thinking back to my studies, I always loved science. I fell in love with space first, and then animals. In college, I studied Behavioral Psychology, which is really the study of animal behaviors. If I had it to do all over again, I think I would have become a marine biologist. This is probably why I have written so many books about whales, sharks, dolphins, and even keeping saltwater aquariums! I like doing Skype sessions because they allow me to connect with more students. I get many more requests for school visits than I can accept, as I need to spend at least some time at my desk, researching and writing books! If you are interested in booking me for a Skype session with your school, click on this link on my website to put in your request.

Students in the Corpus Christi School system got a preview of Seymour Simon's next book, BUTTERFLIES, when he visited their schools earlier this month. Here is one of the fascinating facts Seymour shared about butterflies. Monarch butterflies start life as a beautiful, multicolored caterpillar (which is actually the insect's larva). At least, it looks beautiful to us. To birds and other predators, the colors of this caterpillar say "Danger! Poison! Stay away!" The reason the larva is poison is that the monarch lays its eggs on the poisonous leaves of the milkweed plant. As the caterpillar eats the leaves, it is able to store the poison in its own body, therefore becoming poisonous to other creatures. Pretty good predator avoidance strategy, right? Butterflies and moths exhibit some of the most interest camouflage coloring and behaviors in nature. Click here to read one of Seymour's recent posts is about the Dead-Leaf butterfly, which uses another form of camouflage, called "mimicry."In this photo from a story in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Seymour holds up a copy of the book, which will be published later this summer. You will be able to read more about this in BUTTERFLIES. The book is full of beautiful photographs and fascinating information about butterflies and moths. It will be in bookstores on August 23, 2011 (available for pre-order now on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble). Caterpillar Photo: Mon@rch's Nature Blog

Students in the Corpus Christi School system got a preview of Seymour Simon's next book, BUTTERFLIES, when he visited their schools earlier this month. Here is one of the fascinating facts Seymour shared about monarch butterflies. This photograph from the book shows how monarchs start life as a beautiful, multicolored caterpillar (which is actually the insect's larva). At least, it looks beautiful to us. To birds and other predators, the colors of this caterpillar say "Danger! Poison! Stay away!" The reason the larva is poison is that the monarch lays its eggs on the poisonous leaves of the milkweed plant. As the caterpillar eats the leaves, it is able to store the poison in its own body, therefore becoming poisonous to other creatures. Pretty good predator avoidance strategy, right? Butterflies and moths exhibit some of the most interest camouflage coloring and behaviors in nature. If you missed Seymour's recent blog posting on the Dead-Leaf butterfly, you have to check it out to see video of another unique kind of camouflage, called "mimicry."In this photo from a story in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Seymour holds up a copy of the book, which will be published later this summer. You will be able to read more about this in BUTTERFLIES. The book is full of beautiful photographs and fascinating information about butterflies and moths. It will be in bookstores on August 23, 2011 (available for pre-order now on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble).

A photographer at Nogeyama Zoological Gardens, near Tokyo, caught this baby Black and White Colobus monkey in the middle of a big yawn. These beautiful primates ("primates" are animals with good eyesight and flexible hands and feet, including gorillas, monkeys and humans) are native to Africa, and they are herbivores, eating leaves, fruit, flowers, and twigs.Black and White Colobus babies are born completely white; as you can see, this one's black hair is already starting to grow in. Did looking at this photograph make you want to yawn? Researchers have found that between 40% and 60% of all people are susceptible to "catching" a yawn from someone else. No one knows quite why, although lots of experiments have been done to try to understand why. Photo courtesy of MSNBC.com's "Animal Tracks"

Librarian Alissa Gonzalez wrote to me with a good question that I think many people are wondering about. Dear Seymour: I read that many people, when receiving advanced warning of a tsunami, take their boats and sail out to sea to be safer (because the tsunami is only a huge, destructive wave at shore). I have been trying to explain this to someone with little success. Can you help me understand this better? Tsunami waves carry a huge amount of energy that is generated by the force of the earthquake. When they are far out at sea, the waves are far apart, so that powerful energy is spread out over a broad space. The waves are not huge in height and may not even be very noticeable at a distance from a shore.However, as tsunami waves get closer to shore, they pack closer together. That energy has to go somewhere, so it goes up, which means the height of the wave increases. The greater the height of the wave, the greater its destructive power, as it can wash over sea walls, over docks and boats, and even (as we saw in Japan) into communities where people live. That's why some sailors getting sufficient advance warning will take their ships out to sea to avoid having them crushed by the tsunami waves breaking on shore. Many readers have questions about earthquakes and tsunamis, and I have been writing often about them on the Seymour Science blog. You can read all about this subject by clicking on the label Earthquakes.