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June 28, 2006
Mail's In!
There's nothing like a huge stack of mail to make an author happy. Thank you to all who wrote to me. If I tried to write back to every single person, I'm quite sure I wouldn't finish my next novel in time, so I hope you don't mind that I've answered your letters here. I want you to know that I take all of your messages seriously indeed. The best part of my work is hearing from readers interested in what I'm doing.
Kaitlin, 12, from Chandler, and Olivia from Lincolnton, NC, both wrote about the "Future Travel" challenge and the E/S Orcelle, a solar, wind, and wave-powered ocean ship.
Kaitlin — That is cool how you made that. Or did you make that?
Julie — Hi Kaitlin. It's very cool indeed. I'd love to try sailing on a ship like this. I imagine it would be quiet and possibly smoother than the types of ships we have now. I didn't make it, or make it up. Credit for that goes to the inventors in Sweden, which doesn't surprise me. That's a country with a long history of daring travel over the sea.
Olivia — You realize that will never happen in the next hundred years. (but I could be wrong. maybe you should ask motor-dude with the short article if it will happen.)
Julie — This is what is called a concept design, which means it isn't in production yet. A concept has a great deal of work and research put into it. The researchers will take comments on this design and make changes. Then, they'll move to the next step, which is to make testable models of various parts of the ship. As for how long until they build the real thing? Nothing proposed here is beyond what we can already do, so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see ships very like this one on the seas within the next 20 years. After all, the cars on our roads today were concept designs not long ago.
Nancy, 8, from Pittsburgh, PA, wrote about how ants teach one another ("Teacher! Teacher!").
Nancy — I think that this is really weird. Ants as teachers??? What the heck?
Julie — I was surprised too, Nancy. I knew ants could talk to one another in a way, using smells and gestures. I knew an ant could leave a smelly trail behind as it walked and other ants could follow the smell to find food. But science is about asking questions and finding out new things. One question was about what ants might be saying to each other. It turns out that some ants can give directions and teach other ants where to go. Fun and weird!
Maud, 10, from Iowa City, IA, and Abby, 12, from Jackson, MI, wrote about the idea of virtual pets ("Pet Perfection").
Maud — I'd rather have a real pet than a fake one because I like the real thing more than the artificial one. I don't play any video games, but I have two real cats, and I like them being real. Aside from the fact that I have to scoop their litter box.
Julie — ::laughs:: Me too, Maud. I've always had pets, and I love them very much. But I can imagine someone who couldn't have a pet, perhaps an astronaut in space, or even someone with serious allergies, might like having a virtual one.
Abby — i think that this might be a cool idea in big cities. but if you give a kid a virtual pet than they are not using responsibility to take caare of it.
Julie — Hi Abby. You're quite right. Responsibility is a big part of having a pet. The designers of virtual pets are thinking about this. Some virtual pets are designed to need help to survive. The owner must push the right buttons to give them energy and some games even require the owner to use a control to take the virtual pet for a daily walk. Imagination is a wonderful thing, isn't it?
July, 16, from Houston, TX, and Kelly, 11, from Brookfield, WI, wrote about the torrent frog, which can use ultrasound to communicate in noisy places, and communicating with aliens ("Can You Hear Me?").
July — I like to say am a big fan of frogs and will like to see a frog having more than 2 legs I hear of this and want to proof it right.
Julie — Hi July! I'm a frog fan myself. We have two ponds on our property that we made especially to attract frogs. I'm happy to say we had over 70 frogs last summer living in our backyard. They were loud, but we enjoyed the sound. If you want to find more information about frogs, including sightings of frogs with more legs than normal (which does happen), here are a couple of suggestions:
Put "frog" into the search function at the top of this page. You'll get a list of all the Science News for Kids articles featuring frogs. When I did this just now, I found 22. Not bad.
One of my favorite sites is www.cnf.ca/naturewatch/frogwatch/east.html (Nature Canada). Here you can listen to the sounds of the frogs where I live.
Kelly — Talking-English, Spanish, French, German, Chineese, all of them. Sign language-last night I saw three people using sign language. It was vary interesting how fast they were and they were all laughing and having a great time. We write/type. We use our eyes sometimes if we want to point or roll them to say something is really stupid or lame. We can use our fingers to point or something like that. We use all of our body to speak. AIM can help us communicate.
Julie — Kelly, this is an excellent suggestion. The challenge was what could you do to communicate with aliens, if you couldn't hear the sounds they made—and they couldn't hear you. So using gestures would be a logical step. Have you ever tried signaling to a friend across a crowded room? It isn't hard to get across basic ideas, is it? I'm hungry, let's go, should I come over to you. . . . If you know an actual sign language, such as AIM, you'll need to teach the aliens what the words mean, but gestures will help with that, too. Great idea, thanks.
Maggie, 11, from Houston, TX, wrote about the world's smallest fish ("How Small I Am . . .").
Maggie — i thought it was really cool but if it's so small how the heck do people see it?????!!!!!
Julie — When I worked in fish biology, we would use very fine nets and sweep them through the water. Quite often, we couldn't see anything in the net except a fine line of brown or green. When we gently washed that material into glass dishes and looked through a microscope, the brown and green turned out to be thousands of small organisms. The small fish from Sumatra was found in a similar way, although 7.9 millimeters is large enough to see with your eye. That's about the size of a mosquito and, being a fish, would be a little shiny. I'm sure other people have seen it, but unless they looked very closely, would think it was an insect or worm. Which is why my first biology professor insisted we all get in the habit of tucking a little magnifying glass into our pockets. It pays to look at the small stuff!
"It was super boring."
"This is so easy. I did this in 2 minutes or less. Who ever made this sucks at everything."
"I think that this puzzle is kind of baby-ish. :( Try to make them a little bit harder,but overall I like this site. I use it to do science news articles for my school."
"This was too easy to me but it was below my level!"
Julie — It seems some of you found the challenges and games on the SciFiZone a bit too easy or boring. ::laughs:: Of course you did. Let me guess—you would be the folks who already know about science fiction. Wonderful to see you here!
I admit, what I write for the SciFiZone is intended for a less knowledgeable audience. After all, I don't need to explain science fiction or its ideas to you, do I? I hope you find some of the open-ended challenges more to your liking, but . . . there's something else you can do for me. Next time there's a new challenge here that you find interesting, but way too easy, show it to someone who thinks that they don't like science fiction or that it's kid stuff. (You know who.) Don't give them too much help and please don't make them feel dumb. Just observe how they puzzle it out. Pay attention to why it's easy for you and not so easy for them. Then help. If you enjoyed doing that, great! Volunteer to help your teacher use some of these challenges in class. An expert in the classroom is worth any number of science fiction writers online, after all.
"It is very nice. It help you learn more."
"This is awesome."
"Great!"
"This article was really cool and fun to read so keep up the good work."
"this ROCKS! I also think that you guys[& girls] should put in a cupple more games."
"YOU DID A GOOD JOB"
"i liked it a lot !"
". . . I like such question/anticepation of answer.And I likes fiction stories also."
"I thiought this article was pretty cool! Awesome picks!"
"coolio"
"its good"
"cool"
"this game was a little challengeing for me but it really was very fun and i liked it a lot."
"this is an awsome thing"
"good but ineed more"
Julie — ::blushing, blushing, big grin:: Thank you!!!! We're doing our best to share the fun and fascination of science fiction with you. It's great to hear you've enjoyed it, too. You've made me happy, that's for sure. I have a wonderful time learning about cool new discoveries in science. It's even better when I can find a way to explore those new ideas using science fiction with you here.
To all who have taken time to write to me care of Science News for Kids, thank you very much. Please keep your e-mails coming! I look forward to opening my mailbox again soon!—Julie Czerneda.
This week's recommended scifi books
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