A Notebook group atop North Bubble Peak during a summer hike in Acadia National Park. Under a new program, doctors may begin prescribing these sort of outings for nature-deprived and obese children.

Take Two Hikes and Call Me In the Morning

April 7, 2012

Richard Louv wrote in his 2008 milestone book

Last Child In the Woods that children need nature for the healthy development of their bodies, their minds, their senses, even their creativity and imagination. Yet for myriad reasons—ranging from the paving over of forests and fields to the lure of electronic devices to adult fears that exploring in the woods is too dangerous for their kids—fewer and fewer children are getting outside to burn off energy and connect with trees, bugs, birds, rocks, streams, clouds, companions, colors, mysteries, mosses, animal sounds, pine scents, wildflowers, wild thoughts, fresh air and two of the human race's most powerful experiences: discovery and wonder.

This week the U.S. Forest Service sent me an email announcing a program designed to address what Louv has labeled "nature-deficit disorder" among kids. As part of a joint effort with the National Environmental Education Foundation, the announcement noted, the Forest Service "is offering its 193 million acres of forests and grasslands as a prescription for healthier kids."

The word "prescription" is more than a metaphor. Even though "nature-deficit disorder" is a writer's description, not a formal medical condition, the new program, known as the Children & Nature Initiative, "trains health care providers to take a child’s environmental history and give patients and their guardians a written prescription for outdoor activity, connecting them with a particular forest, park, wildlife refuge, nature center or other public land near their neighborhood," according to the announcement. "Outdoor activity can help prevent serious health conditions like obesity and diabetes but also can reduce stress and serve as a support mechanism for attention disorders."

Here's a prescription for kids of any age: Combine a hike in Acadia with a lesson in how to do a leaf-rubbing. The results can be electrifying.

“Our nation's forests and grasslands offer tremendous physical, psychological and spiritual benefits to an increasingly urbanized populace,” said U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. “We hope kids and parents alike will follow the doctor's orders when given a ‘prescription for fun.’”

According to the announcement, the initiative "gives health care providers the technical support, tools and resources they need to be effective in prescribing outdoor activity to patients. Providers are trained to become 'nature champions' for children in their communities."

This is welcome news for those of us lucky enough to have spent considerable time in the woods as kids, and to have given lots of thought to children's increasing distance from nature (it is one of many reasons Pamelia and I launched The Naturalist's Notebook in 2009). Just one suggestion: How about starting an Adults & Nature Initiative too?

Art Meets Elephant I'm not sure whether to be fascinated, spooked, appalled or inspired by this lumbering mechanical pachyderm created by artists in Nantes, France. People's eagerness to ride it may reflect the awe humans feel when we see large mammals, or perhaps just our desire to control them. It's thought-provoking—and obnoxiously loud and grating (perhaps part of the artists' intent), so you might want to watch the clip with the volume turned down.

Notebook Road Trip Last weekend Notebook team member Haley Harwood and science-and-nature-minded companion Eric St. Denis ventured down to Bates College with a carload of books from the Notebook to sell at the spring meeting of the Josselyn Botanical Society. We at the Notebook are novices at this sort of thing, but the experience was fun and enlightening. Eric and Haley heard longtime Notebook friend Arthur Haines (research botanist at the New England Wildflower Society) discuss his new book, Flora Novae Angliae (Flora of New England), and attended workshops where they learned how to identify winter fungi and collect, press and mount herbarium specimens. Someone at the event even bought a copy of Last Child In the Woods. Thanks, Haley and Eric. And thanks too to all you nice folks from Josselyn.

Speaking of Books…
We also sell books by mail. You can look through many of our more serious nature and natural history titles by clicking on http://www.vfthomas.com/TNNbooks-nh.htm. If you see something you would like, just email us your order at info@thenaturalistsnotebook.com. (Just FYI, the phone number listed on that web page has the wrong area code; Maine is 207, not 201.) We have MANY other books for adults and children on science, nature, math, art making, gardening and other topics at The Naturalist’s Notebook, but we haven’t had time to put them on a web page.

We have Richard Louv's new book, The Nature Principle, which describes how tapping into the natural world can help people of all ages become healthier, smarter, happier, more creative and more deeply connected to other people and the world.

A Musical Interlude Last year a pair of 14-year-olds helped curate our interactive Biodiversity Room. Anthea and Melanie worked with us to start an origami tree to which Naturalist's Notebook visitors could add leaves, birds, bats, blossoms and other of their own origami creations—thereby slowly building a richer and richer ecosystem.

Some visitors had to jump to add their origami creations to the tree created in last year's Notebook by Melanie and Anthea.

This week we got word that Melanie, a cellist, had earned the honor of being selected to the Connecticut student orchestra. She obviously has superior talent, and she has musical bloodlines—her grandmother, Vivian Perlis, is a concert harpist and one of the most important American music historians ever, having done pioneering work on the oral histories of 20th century American musicians—but what also stands out about Melanie (besides her being a wonderful person) is her willingness to work hard to achieve goals. Training to be a musician (or an athlete or a biologist or many other things) requires sacrifice. Not all teenagers, even smart, talented ones, will dial back their social lives and TV watching to spend time alone working on, say, their cello fingering. Here's to Melanie for setting an inspiring example for us kids of all ages.

Last summer Melanie (on cello) and another musical prodigy, Emma Walsh, who had never even met before, got together to put on a memorable performance on the Drawing Room deck at the Notebook.

If you'd like a few moments of lovely music, here's a link to Melanie and three fellow students performing Antonin Dvorak's Bagatelle No. 5:

In case you were wondering what a female mosquito's bite looks like up close...

Today’s Puzzler
This week we watched For All Mankind, a 1989 documentary about NASA’s Apollo missions. The film was nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar. The Netflix DVD had a bonus feature on the space-related paintings done by Alan Bean, who was the fourth astronaut to walk on the Moon. Bean at one point talks about the difficulty he had keeping his balance when he first stepped onto that big orb of cheese and hadn’t adjusted to its weaker gravity, which makes a person feel lighter. Here’s the question:

If a person weighs 150 pounds on Earth, how much will he or she weigh on the Moon?
a) 85 pounds
b) 60 pounds
c) 25 pounds

Here's one of former astronaut Alan Bean's paintings. You can find more at alanbean.com.

The heron cam is watching the nest 24 hours a day.

Great Blue Heron Eggs and Nest

April 4, 2012

Right now the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has two live cameras trained on the nest of a great blue heron. Click on the link below at any hour of the day or night and you can see what's happening with the mother and her four eggs—up from three in the photo above because she laid another last evening. Our Notebook friend LJ let us know about the link and added, "Turn the volume up and you will hear red-winged blackbirds, geese and others in the background. Her feathers rustle in the breezes and it's fun to see the male come and go from the nest, too." The eggs are expected to start hatching in late April.

Check the cameras out for the most peaceful sights and sounds that you'll experience today.

Just click here: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/page.aspx?pid=2433

Here's another article about the cameras and about herons:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/great-blue-heron-cam/

The Daily Show host nearly followed in the footsteps of Dmitri Mendeleyev, Antoine Lavoisier and Henry Cavendish. (We're glad he didn't.)

Jon Stewart, Chemistry Buff (And Other Surprises)

April 2, 2012

What if Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of The Daily Show, had chosen a career in chemistry instead of political comedy? What if Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame had become a biologist instead of a legendary rock guitarist?

Each easily could have happened. The clips below reveal the scientific side of both men. The first clip is a gem, or perhaps I should say a diamond, made—as all natural diamonds are—of carbon that was transformed by extremely high pressure and heat 100 miles underground more than a billion years ago. (Diamonds aren't just beautiful, they're also very old.) The clip is a conversation about carbon between Stewart and Neil de Grasse Tyson (who's pictured), the ever-enlightening astrophysicist and author who heads the Hayden Planetarium in New York. Click on it to hear about Stewart's first love, the sixth element in the periodic table.

Just a note before you click on the clip: Carbon atoms have the ability to form four bonds with other atoms, which enables carbon to combine with multiple elements in a vast variety of molecules—and explains the somewhat racy carbon banter in which … — Just a note before you click on the clip: Carbon atoms have the ability to form four bonds with other atoms, which enables carbon to combine with multiple elements in a vast variety of molecules—and explains the somewhat racy carbon banter in which Stewart and de Grasse Tyson engage.

Click below:

We all should share Stewart's enthusiasm for carbon. Element number 6 is the chemical cornerstone of all forms of life on Earth. It's in every living thing. It can form nearly 10 million different compounds and has the highest melting point of any element (more than 6,440 degrees Fahrenheit). Carbon: It ain't just charcoal.

For the record, when Stewart switched out of his chemistry major at William & Mary, he became a psychology major instead.

Jimmy Page
As a child the great guitarist dreamed of becoming a scientist. As a teenager he even interviewed for a job as a lab assistant. The clip below is of Page at age 13 during an appearance on a BBC talent-search show.

The clip cuts off the rest of the interview, in which Page says that when he grows up he wants to do biological research to find a cure for cancer, "if it isn't discovered by then."

If your inner scientist is wondering about the science of a lead zeppelin, here's how that oxymoron became the name of the band: Two members of The Who, having been invited by Page to join him in a supergroup, said that the proposed band would probably go over "like a lead balloon" (the words of drummer Keith Moon) or like "a lead zeppelin" (the words of bass guitarist John Entwistle). The pair didn't join the group, which Page decided to name Led Zeppelin. (He changed Lead to Led so people would pronounce it correctly.)

Flights of Spring

Herring gulls hovered in place while flying into the strong wind in Bar Harbor the other evening. Those balmy 70-degree temperatures of two weeks ago have given way to more typical blustery April weather here in northern New England.

The flocks of birds around our home keep growing. Nearly three dozen goldfinches and purple finches have been chirping and feeding together. This sparrow took a close-up look at Pamelia through a glass door.

Birds of Quebec
Through The Naturalist's Notebook we've come to know Alexandre J-Nicole, a Canadian who has designed beautiful, educational bird mobiles I'll tell you more about in a future post. Alexandre also has launched a bird blog called Fair-Feathered Friends (http://fairfeatheredfriends.tumblr.com/). He said we could post some of his photos. You can find more at his blog.

The Scale of Everything
I'm not sure which amazed me more: Zooming through Scale of the Universe 2, an interactive Internet feature that is one of the coolest things I've ever seen, or learning that Scale of the Universe 2 was created by a pair of 14-year-old twin brothers from Moraga, Calif., Cary and Michael Huang.

The mind-expanding website lets you use a cursor to zoom in and out through objects of all sizes, from the observable universe (width: 10 to the 27th power meters) at the large end to a Planck length (width: 10 to the minus-35th power meters) at the… — The mind-expanding website lets you use a cursor to zoom in and out through objects of all sizes, from the observable universe (width: 10 to the 27th power meters) at the large end to a Planck length (width: 10 to the minus-35th power meters) at the small end.

Cary Huang, a ninth grader, thought up the idea two years ago after his seventh-grade science teacher showed Cary's class a size-comparison video on cells. Cary created Scale of the Universe just for fun, with Michael, his more technical-minded brother, providing help in making it function on the Internet.

Cary told Ned Potter of ABC News that both he and Michael are interested in computer programming, animation and astronomy but aren't sure of their career ambitions. When Potter asked him if he thought there was a lesson to be learned from his project, Cary replied, "I would like to say that humankind is a very small part of the universe we live in. There could be so much more out there, but we just don't know it yet."

Click here to explore Scale of the Universe 2. You HAVE to do it:

http://htwins.net/scale2/scale2.swf?bordercolor=white

A Naturalist Adventure
We have an extraordinary young naturalist friend named Luka Negoita. He is a recent College of the Atlantic graduate who two summers ago lived on a deserted island off the Maine coast documenting every species of plant. Luka was born in Romania and now, through Kickstarter, the match-your-dollars web initiative, he is trying to raise the funding for a unique six-week spring project in that country. Luka and colleague Phil Walter would document aspects of Romania—old knowledge and skills in areas ranging from medicinal plants to cheese-making—that are vanishing because of modernization.

Luka is a remarkable observer. He has an exuberant love of nature, a mind that never stops asking questions and a hand that creates wonderful sketches in his field notebook. To learn more about him and his project and/or make a contribution, click on: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/285920919/old-knowledge-sketches-of-a-simple-life. As a person and a naturalist, he's worth the investment.

Here's Luka, who will begin graduate studies in botany and plant ecology at Syracuse this fall.

Answer to the Last Puzzler
An adult’s fingernails grow roughly an inch a year, the same speed at which North America and Europe are moving apart because of shifting continental plates. Nails don't all grow at the same speed, however. Fingernails grow four times faster than toenails, and nails on longer fingers grow slightly faster than nails on shorter fingers.

Here's a puzzler in itself. As noted in the book Last Chance to See (the source of this photo of Stephen Fry with rhinoceros horns confiscated from poachers), 95 percent of Africa's rhinos had been killed by the early 1990s, mostly for their horns. … — Here's a puzzler in itself. As noted in the book Last Chance to See (the source of this photo of Stephen Fry with rhinoceros horns confiscated from poachers), 95 percent of Africa's rhinos had been killed by the early 1990s, mostly for their horns. Many of those horns are used in ground-up form in Asia for their supposed medicinal properties. Guess what? Rhino horns are composed primarily of keratin, the same protein that makes up your fingernails and toenails. It's tragic that the rhinos had to die when people could have gotten just as much medicinal benefit (i.e., none) by clipping and eating their own nails.

Today's Puzzler
This week I drove past a store signboard that had this humorous quotation from Tom Wilson, the comedian and actor best known for playing Biff in Back to the Future: "Mosquitoes remind us that we are not as high up the food chain as we thought."

So here's a mosquito question: Which mosquitoes bite humans: a) only male mosquitoes b) only female mosquitoes c) both male and female mosquitoes

Microscopes at the Darwin Centre in London, based on a photograph by Pamelia and altered with a palette-brush painting technique with my computer.

Painting Science and Nature Without a Brush (And a Super-Slo-Mo Eagle Owl)

March 26, 2012

In my few spare moments lately I've been playing with images. I'm not a digital expert—other than being able to count my fingers and toes—but I've been taking photographs and using digital tools to change their look. It's all rudimentary stuff. My colleagues who work in the art department at Sports Illustrated would no doubt liken my efforts to finger-painting. No matter. It's fun. If I had a finger-painting tool on the computer, I'd try that too.

This is a hoopoe specimen that Pamelia photographed at the Natural History Museum in London and I photo-doctored with a colored-pencil tool.

This is a watercolor twist on an iris Pamelia photographed at the Asticou Azalea Gardens on Mount Desert Island.

A paint-daubing tool enabled me to alter my photo of a fox in the snow at our house.

This is supposed to have a plastic feel—very unlike The Naturalist's Notebook, of course, but an interesting effect.

I gave a wave treatment to this photo of a juvenile bald eagle (taken, I think, in 2009 by young ornithologist Pat Johnson, part of the Notebook's founding team).

A photo I shot of a water drop on lupine, made more abstract with a cutout-paper technique.

Pamelia's moonrise photo, tweaked with a smudge tool.

Guess what? This isn't computer-doctored at all, even though (at least to me) it looks awfully painterly. I took this sunrise photo at our house a year or two ago.

A Planetary Follow-Up

In a recent blog post I showed a mussel shell that resembled a globe with the continents merged. I said that the continents looked that way hundreds of millions of years ago. Well, here's a map of the Earth from 200 million years ago, when continent… — In a recent blog post I showed a mussel shell that resembled a globe with the continents merged. I said that the continents looked that way hundreds of millions of years ago. Well, here's a map of the Earth from 200 million years ago, when continents were connected in a supercontinent called Pangaea. Note that what's now Maine was connected to Africa and was below the equator. The continental plates are still constantly shifting beneath our feet. Right now Maine and the rest of North America are moving away from Europe, toward Asia, at the same rate your fingernails grow.

The Eagle Owl in Super Slow Motion Thanks to LJ for sending along this remarkable video of a large Eurasian owl called the eagle owl, shot at 1,000 frames per second. Watch it and be mesmerized...

Good News Remember that abandoned Lowe's big-box store I wrote about a couple of months ago? This week the globally respected Jackson Laboratory of Bar Harbor said that it plans to buy the Ellsworth, Maine, store and use it to expand the lab's mouse-breeding operations. In addition to its extensive research work in genetics and other fields, the Jackson Lab breeds mice for scientific use around the world. The lab said that the Lowe's operation could employ 300 people within a few years.

Answer to the Last Puzzler

a) It's TRUE that President Martin Van Buren had two tiger cubs as White House pets. b) It's TRUE that President Andrew Johnson had white mice as White House pets. c) It's TRUE that President William Taft had a cow as a White House pet. d) It's TRUE that President Calvin Coolidge had a raccoon as a White House pet. e) It's NOT TRUE that President Harry Truman had a donkey as a White House pet. In case you're wondering, some of the animals above were gifts from state or foreign leaders. The presidents didn't want to insult those leaders by getting rid of the animals.

Calvin Coolidge's wife, Grace, with their pet raccoon. Among the other animals the Coolidges kept in the White House were a pair of collies, a donkey, a bobcat, canaries, a goose and a mockingbird.

Today's Puzzler

I mentioned above that the North American continental plate is moving away from Europe and toward Asia at the speed your fingernails grow. Roughly how fast do an adult's fingernails grow?

a) about an inch a year
b) about two-and-a-half inches a year
c) about three-and-a-half inches a year

Inside the MDI Biological Lab

March 22, 2012

While roaming the frontier of science, you might be lucky enough to come upon a scenic 200-acre coastal campus in Salisbury Cove, Maine. The Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory is a 114-year-old institution that traces an arc from the scientific era of Thomas Edison and taxidermied animal specimens to the age of nanotechnology and decoding the human genome.

The story begins at Tufts. That respected university in Boston set up a summer science operation on the southern Maine coast, in South Harpswell, in 1898. This so-called Tufts Summer School of Biology focused on studies of marine animals and plants. It soon relocated, changed its name and shifted its focus. It moved up the coast to Mount Desert Island in 1921 when George Dorr—the wealthy gentleman scholar and nature lover who was a driving force behind the founding of Acadia National Park—donated an old farm property that would be transformed into today's larger, world-respected lab complex.

The lab's 200-acre campus on Salisbury Cove has a relaxed, woodsy feel.

Pamelia and I visited the MDIBL on a recent sunny afternoon. We strolled the piney campus with the lab's delightful Shannara Gilman. The lab now conducts research year-round, with permanent and visiting scientists, but the grounds were a little quieter than usual on this day because no classes or symposia were underway, and no college biology groups from Bates or other Northeastern colleges were in residence in the dormitories or guest cottages.

The campus bursts to life in summer. As we walked past the dorms we could imagine the grounds in July and August, filled with promising high school and college students as well as visiting scientists and their families, some of whom have come here every summer for decades. The empty outdoor glass tanks would be filled with sea life specimens. The lodge-like dining hall would be abuzz, its Ping-Pong table alive with the happy tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap of an all-comers tournament. The new three-story, LEED-Gold Certified (for energy conservation and environmental-friendly design) lab building would be lit up with all manner of brain power.

If you're envisioning the most intelligent summer camp on the planet, a hands-on, working laboratory where internationally prominent science researchers extend that frontier of knowledge by day and in the evening play volleyball on the lawn with teenage biologists-in-the-making, well, you're on the right track. The friendly, family atmosphere blends with a serious level of experimentation, observation and analysis. That atmosphere fills the MDIBL all year, of course, not just in summer.

One of the labs in the new green-designed complex. In addition to the high-level reseach done here by top scientists, high school and college students learn to do things like clone genes and synthesize DNA.

Back in the 1920s, the lab began focusing on kidney research. The lab's symbol is the dogfish shark because for decades that animal was a favorite study subject. If you're trying to understand human kidneys and the blood-pressure problems caused by high sodium levels, what better creature to examine than one that can regulate its salt levels even while living in salt water? Marine toxins were among the many other areas of study on which the lab left its mark in the decades that followed. Today MDIBL researchers are making breakthroughs in regenerative medicine, environmental science, cellular and molecular biology and other realms. The lab also is home to geneticist, biologist and educator Jane Disney, a dynamo who helps develop young scientists and environmentalists and has spearheaded efforts to restore eel grass and a healthy overall ecology to adjacent Frenchman's Bay.

Perhaps you'd like to look around the place? Come on...

The dogfish shark symbol in a mosaic in the dining hall. That 16-inch-long shark's ability to regulate salt in its body has provided clues to help address kidney disease. Lab researchers have also studied the dogfish shark in search of a cure for cy… — The dogfish shark symbol in a mosaic in the dining hall. That 16-inch-long shark's ability to regulate salt in its body has provided clues to help address kidney disease. Lab researchers have also studied the dogfish shark in search of a cure for cystic fibrosis.

There's a natural-stone arch by the water at Laboratory Point. That's Frenchman's Bay in the distance.

Zebrafish now are used for a lot of MDIBL studies. Among their research-friendly traits, they develop quickly, their genome has been sequenced and their bodies are virtually transparent, allowing a clear view of what's happening inside them. Perhaps… — Zebrafish now are used for a lot of MDIBL studies. Among their research-friendly traits, they develop quickly, their genome has been sequenced and their bodies are virtually transparent, allowing a clear view of what's happening inside them. Perhaps most important, given the MDIBL's work on regenerative medicine, zebrafish can regenerate their own fins, spinal column, retinas and even heart muscle.

Scientist Jane Disney has expanded her eelgrass-restoration efforts into local schools, where she runs a program she calls Sea Grasses In Classes.

From left: Yours truly, Shannara Gilman and Jane Disney in Jane's lab. As one scientist at the lab told me, if you're ever having a bad day at the MDIBL, just look out the window at the gorgeous view and everything will seem better.

On Wednesday night we went to another in the MDI Bio Lab's Science Cafe series. Jackson Laboratory scientist Kyuson Yun explained the work she and others are doing on a hugely important discovery: cancer stem cells, which appear to be the cells that… — On Wednesday night we went to another in the MDI Bio Lab's Science Cafe series. Jackson Laboratory scientist Kyuson Yun explained the work she and others are doing on a hugely important discovery: cancer stem cells, which appear to be the cells that drive the spread of tumors. Until the last few years, no one knew that these cancer supercells (that's my term, not the scientific one) existed. Finding a way to attack those cells (which aren't always easy to identify) is a new challenge for researchers and pharmaceutical companies.

An Amazing Artist and His Kinetic Sculpture Thanks to ornithologist Pat Johnson, who was a member of the original Notebook team in 2009 and continues to inspire us, for passing along this link to this must-see video:

Global Blog Note of the Week According to the latest statistics, The Naturalist's Notebook blog has been read over the last 30 days by people in 81—yes, 81—countries, from Mongolia to Macedonia to Malayasia. That makes me happy.

Answer to the Last Puzzler

The bird was named the cardinal because Catholic cardinals wore bright red robes. How did Catholic cardinals get their name? It is derived from Latin word cardo, meaning "that on what something turns or depends," or, literally, a "door hinge." The church cardinals were so powerful that major issues hinged on their decisions.

Whether you decide to paint your door hinges cardinal red in order to remember this is entirely up to you.

Today's Puzzler

Which one of these statements is NOT true?

a) President Martin Van Buren had two tiger cubs as White House pets
b) President Andrew Johnson had white mice as White House pets
c) President William Taft had a cow as a White House pet
d) President Calvin Coolidge had a raccoon as a White House pet
e) President Harry Truman had a donkey as a White House pet

Through the Lens

March 19, 2012

A few shots from the weekend...

Pamelia found a mussel shell that looked to us like a globe—perhaps one showing the world hundreds of millions of years ago, when the continents were joined in a different configuration.

In the warmth on Saturday, legions of spiders skittered around the cove beach near us. Can you spot the spider camouflaged by this dried rock weed?

Olympic track champion and Notebook friend Lynn Jennings snapped this swirling shot of her companion Towhee during a brisk Sunday hike through Forest Park in Portland, Oregon. Towhee, an Olympic-caliber trail runner and nature observer, celebrated h… — Olympic track champion and Notebook friend Lynn Jennings snapped this swirling shot of her companion Towhee during a brisk Sunday hike through Forest Park in Portland, Oregon. Towhee, an Olympic-caliber trail runner and nature observer, celebrated her 11th birthday last Friday.

Yellow lichen on rocks along our shore. Lichens are lovely but strange. They're actually two organisms living in combination—algae cells linked with filaments of fungi.

Our 15 wild turkeys were in full strut on Saturday afternoon.

This one is courtesy of NASA. It's a new, false-color, ultraviolet shot of the recently stormy Sun. It's in 3-D, so if you have the glasses you should be able to see the solar flare jumping out at you. At least in theory.

Answers to the Last Puzzlers

1) The grackle gets its name from gracula, the Latin word for the European jackdaw.

2) Abraham Lincoln is the one who said, “All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.”

Today's Puzzler

1) Did the bird known as the cardinal get its name from Catholic cardinals, who wear red, or did Catholic cardinals get their name from the bird?

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