Alan Sage mentioned an interesting reason for refining his vegetarian diet. He said he noticed that fish have eyes and quit eating them. That interesting way of looking at food made me wonder about what it is vegetarians actually should eat. Plants Penetrate Protein Marketplace

From 1954-1992, the FDA recommended the four basic food groups: meat proteins, beans, eggs, and nuts; dairy products; grains; and fruits and vegetables. The FDA uses the food pyramid, which recommends proper portioning of food. I have taught both ways, but I didn’t know much about vegetarian eating. How do vegetarians maintain their nutrient intake without eating meat and sometimes other foods, depending on the kind of vegetarian one becomes?

Emily Whiting mentioned incremental success being as important as actually reaching the goal in her sport of rock climbing. For many of us, reaching the goal of whatever it is we desire is the equivalent of success. Here’s Emily, as always, taking it one step further. Often it becomes the driving power—not to improve but to reach the goal. Her comment about being able to attain just a bit more than the last time made a lot of sense. It fits life, too.

Starting out on a writing career, my dreams of a best seller, huge royalties and fan recognition featured prominently. As for science careers, finding a cure for cancer or winning the Nobel Prize for many trumps a teaching career, particularly at the elementary level. But Emily’s statement about incremental success shows life as it really is. A few people hit the big time right away. But for most of us, it’s the steps along the way that make our own career and life rewarding. With each step, small successes push us further along. The goal is the direction; the steps are our life.

Writing for magazines and small presses may not be most writers’ goals. Teaching science often conjures images of academia and scholars, not second graders testing magnets. But who is to say one has more value than the other? Choosing what you love to do is the best goal.

And the steps toward the goal are what we should celebrate, for those are the things that fulfill our dreams. And the small successes may add up to far more than the original goal in the end. Funny how rock climbing is a lot like life—and Emily is on to it. Success is simply going one step further.

The Dallas Zoo recently opened an exhibit called “Giants of the Savanna.” A new group of four elephants was brought in to join the elephants, Jenny and Gypsy, already living there. The two groups, separated between the new savannah and the original pen, rumbled back and forth. Jenny and Gypsy exhibited snorkeling behaviors to learn about the newcomers. An elephant’s ability to interpret olfactory information comes from their highly developed Jacobsen’s organ and sensitive trunks. The new elephants have since been introduced and while still separated within the savanna, the two groups have been in touch. Smells Like Calf Spirit! (Arutemu)

So I already had elephants on my mind when Dave Sulzer’s videos appeared. The elephant music astounded me. The idea of giving elephants marimbas, mallets, and drums was novel and strangely exotic. I loved the sounds they made and was curious about the connection between their music and their communication. I wanted to learn more about how elephants converse and get to know one another.

Serendipitously, I’d recently received a copy of Elephant Talk by Ann Downer – but had been waiting until the perfect opportunity arose to read it. After seeing Dave’s elephants making music, I had to read it.

Shaundra’s work caught my eye. Although I taught for a good number of years, I never totally connected the link between emotions and learning. I knew that upset students couldn’t pay attention. But the thought of engineering a tool to help identify emotions so they don’t block learning is an astonishing thought. What an idea for teachers! Books are for reading, not for hiding behind!

Fear, anger, sadness, and enjoyment form the basic emotions. Within each emotion, a range of related feelings expand from there. But Priscilla Vail, an expert on learning, has explained it a different way. She describes emotion as the “on-off switch to learning.”

Emotions give us a way to gauge the world. Without emotions, our world would be flat and dull. We wouldn’t experience the joyous dizziness that comes with falling in love, feel the surge of contentment looking at magnificent mountain peaks, or grieve over the loss of a loved one.

The buzz about meditation for good health and relieving stress is more common in today’s society than ever. Scientists are finding ways to explain exactly how meditation helps people. For a long time, practitioners noticed the correlation between meditation and mood. Having been skeptical until now, I started meditating at the behest of a friend and vowed to keep my mind open. I like the way I feel after, and while I have yet to recognize firm results, I’m convinced enough to continue. Andre Fenton’s connection between meditation and running makes a lot of sense to me.

I will become a neurobiologist… I will become a neurobiologist… Electrical activity occurs in the brain no matter what a person is doing – resting, problem-solving, meditating, or sleeping. Different brain waves predominate during the different activities. Alpha waves are characteristic of wakeful rest. They also show up during meditation.

Trials have shown that individuals who have meditated for many years are less disturbed by distractions. Apparently, their brains are trained to focus or concentrate better. Trials have also shown that meditation increased activity in regions of the brain used for paying attention and decision-making.

Since minds tend to wander off, concentrating on one specific stimulus is harder than it appears, especially for several minutes. Concentration takes some focus. Andre Fenton’s focus on the run seems to hold his thoughts in place.

Improving your brain to concentrate in an effortless way can be a bonus in a busy, distracting world. Meditation appears to improve concentration on the idea at hand – and the bonus is reaping the benefits in every day life. Your body can be trained to better fitness – so why not train your brain? It’s worth a try.

“I applied streaks and blobs of colors onto the canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I could…” Wassily Kandinsky

Who can paint pictures that sing? A synesthete, that’s who. In Kandinsky’s case, his colors and painted strokes set off sounds or musical notes. And sometimes the other way around, too.

Composition VII, No. 196, 1913. What do you hear? Kandinsky was born in Moscow in 1866, but grew up in Odessa playing the piano and cello at a young age. He studied law and economics and lectured at the Moscow Faculty of Law.

At the age of thirty, he abandoned law and moved to Munich for art school. He studied life-drawing, sketching and anatomy, the traditional subjects for artists at the time, after not recognizing a Monet haystack. Kandinsky’s early style was marked by a liberation of color from defined form. When his teacher, Franz Stuck, told him that his palate was too bright, Kandinsky worked in black-and-white for a year, focusing more on form and less on the music of his colors.

Judy Lee says her favorite piece of equipment is the drill because you can use it for everything. I remember seeing my grandfather’s old hand drill, a crank and turn device similar to an eggbeater, and I’ve used a cordless electric drill on occasion. So I looked up drills to find out more about them.

The first bow drill. Now that’s not a drill…. (Yannick Trottier) The earliest drill was a bow drill, sort of like the fire-starting style equipment that used friction to create heat. Cords wrapped around the drilling stick were pulled and the cord wound and unwound back and forth in reciprocal actions to create the friction and rubbing motion. Early Egyptians and other civilizations used this kind of drill.

Hand drills relied on gears to rotate the cutting part of the instrument, and hand power turned it in a continuous motion, which is why it is also known as the eggbeater drill.

Michio Kaku quoted Albert Einstein, saying, “If a theory can’t be explained to a child, it’s probably worthless.” My job as a writer for children is to explain science ideas in a way they understand. Having just turned in my latest children’s book to Rourke Publishing, Kaku’s comments about Newton and spinning on the ice made a lot of sense to me. An apple a day keeps the ice skaters at play The book is for grades 4—6 and titled “Forces and Motion at Work.” And I’ve always been fascinated by ice skating.

I enjoyed learning about Sir Isaac Newton during my research for the book. I don’t know theoretical physics much at all, but the idea of putting together the science of Newton and ice skating spins into physical science sounded like great fun.

So what would we call ice skating spins if Sir Newton were to have been a skater? Here’s what I think.

Apple drop spin—skater looks up and then down, sinking to the ice in a sit-spin wearing a puzzled look.

Newton-Hooke pairs attitude spin—two skaters spin in contradictory styles.

Alchemical backspin—skater completes a series of spins, moving backwards across the ice.

The Plague death drop-spin—skater leaps into the air, as if to escape contagious germs, and then sits in a safety spin.

“Principia” spin—the spin with a tendency to never return stop spinning.

“There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.” - Leonardo da Vinci

Who doesn’t remember the first look at cork cells under a microscope? There was a beauty and elegance to this microscopic world that had just opened up. Leonardo saw the beauty in nature, including himself. As part of the lab report, we drew that honeycomb of interlocking shapes. That was seventh grade science, and I was hooked.

My love of science grew from that class, but most of all, from that teacher. Mrs. Robinson. I’ll always remember her. She was much older than Caryn to my thirteen-year-old perceptions, but her subject and her enthusiasm for it made an impression on me. When I saw Caryn talking about drawing to really see the beauty in science, it reminded me of what good teachers do with the subject.

As a former science teacher in elementary and secondary schools, I recognize the enthusiasm of the young children as they encounter science. You could actually see the light bulb go on during an activity. Moving up the grades, the enthusiasm declined. But science teachers who love their subject make biology interesting and relevant—and that opens the world. Seeing through drawing is an idea da Vinci began, and it’s a wonderful way to teach biology.

Leonardo da Vinci’s quote seems to fit Caryn’s view of biology. What a wonderful teacher!

Caryn’s drawing connection to Leonardo reminds us that looking at the depth and detail in science is what makes it the fascinating subject it is. Da Vinci showed us the beauty and symmetry of the human body, nature, and the shapes of organisms in his world. Today, science teachers pass along the skill da Vinci had innately.

There are always the students who see. Teachers skilled in revealing the nature of science help those who need to see. Those who do not see need the teachers the most. That’s the nature of the job—and Caryn’s use of Leonardo’s techniques might just open some eyes.

Len Zon has a great secret, but I couldn’t help but focus on the zebrafish he uses in his research. The colored zebrafish reminded of something I ran across while researching my fourth-grade-level book about genes—the GloFish®.

The transgenic zebrafish with its glowing colors have been genetically modified from a normal zebrafish—that is, a gene for fluorescence from a sea anemone or a jellyfish My goodness, you’re glowing! (Courtesy Glofish.com) has been inserted into a zebrafish egg. The genes become part of the genetic makeup of the developing fish and as an adult, the colored zebrafish passes the modified gene to its offspring, who also are that color and continue passing the gene to their offspring. These fascinating fish are available from science suppliers and some retailers for classroom study or to keep as pets. And here’s the link to the GloFish site.

Microbiologist and wrestler Rachel Collins made me think about other scientists in history. What if they had been wrestlers, too? What would their wrestling names have been?

Hmmmm.

Announcer’s voice: INTRODUCING…

A recently discovered image of Einstein wrestling. The founder of microbiology who proved that most infectious diseases are caused by microorganisms. Louis “The Virus” Pasteur

The team that decoded the structure of the DNA molecule. “The Double Trouble Helix,” Watson and Crick

A theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity. Albert “The Equation” Einstein

The man who theorized bacteria caused infection and used early sterilization techniques. Joseph “The Germinator” Lister

Considered the father of epidemiology from his work showing cholera was transmitted in water, he removed the Broad Street water pump handle and halted an epidemic. John “The Pump Handle” Snow

Jean stated there are gender differences in language. I agree.

My friends with daughters had lengthy, tell-all conversations and clothing discussions for hours at a time. Coming from a family that told everything to everybody, I was perplexed by my own less than forthcoming offspring—both boys. Sure, they’d casually hint at something important, but pry as I might, I only collected the smallest bits of information.

They’ll hear you if you stand next to them & feed them. Then one day I read a magazine article—not a scientific journal by any means. The article said conversations with girls should be conducted face to face, while conversations with boys should be side by side. As an urban high school teacher, I had lots of out-in-the hall conversations with boys. So I’d lean against the wall next to them and ask away. They answered!

Automatic side-by-side conversations with my sons evolved from our drives to and from sports practices. I loved it and looked forward to the time we spent together—until they could drive.

The evident humor in Mollie’s MIT cheer sounds like a bunch of really techie sorts got together and decided to use their brains. Maybe cheerleading even led to Mollie’s interest in brain research.

Our beloved periodic table deserves a cheer, right? All this thinking about cheers and science made me wonder what sort of science cheers might work. So I checked out the periodic table to refresh my memory and wrote my own cheer, even though I was a majorette and we didn’t cheer. Anyway, here’s a chemistry cheer:

Periodic Table of the Elements Cheer

Hydrogen, helium, hafnium, gold

Gas, gas, transition metal, yellow and bold.

Alkali, halogen, noble, or rare

Check the periodic table, everyone’s there.