Do your feet sometimes smell rotten? Do you wish you could toss out your shoes and start with a new pair? We make jokes about smelly feet, but smell and feet have a very different relationship among some insects. Take butterflies. Have you ever watched a butterfly flit over a plant, gently touch its feet to a leaf, and then fly on to the next leaf? That butterfly isn’t being picky about where to land. It’s hunting for the right kind of leaf for laying its eggs. It’s “smelling” the leaf with its feet! Actually, we need to qualify that statement a bit. Some writers will say the insect is “smelling” the leaf while others may write that it’s “tasting” the leaf. Smelling and tasting are forms of “chemoreception,” or sensing of chemicals. Smell usually refers to sensing from a distance while tasting generally means actually touching the nerve cells that sense a chemical. We humans have cells in our noses that send messages to our brains about chemicals in the air. We call that our sense of smell. We have cells on our tongues that sense chemicals dissolved in liquid in our mouths. That’s taste. That butterfly doesn’t have a nose, and its mouth is a long tube for sucking up nectar from flowers. Its chemoreceptors are elsewhere, like on its feet, around its mouth, and on its antennae. Most butterflies lay their eggs on the plants that the hatched caterpillars will eat. Some species are very specific about what plants their young can feed on. Take the postman butterfly, which lives in Central and South America. Its caterpillars can only survive on certain species of passionflower vines. Other species are poisonous to their offspring. The female postman butterfly has dozens of special nerve cells on her feet called “gustatory sensilla.” Scientists think that when she touches gently down on a leaf, these cells can sense chemicals there that would be poisonous to her caterpillars. She avoids laying eggs on those leaves. But when she finds a plant that will nourish her young, she’ll alight and lay her eggs. Now take your shoes off and move your feet around on the floor. The only nerve endings on your feet are ones that sense touch. But then, you don’t need to be able to smell the ground you walk on. Imagine how gross it would be if your feet could smell the insides of your socks and shoes—yuck!  In these photographs taken through a microscope, you can see the sensory sensilla (arrow) on the feet of the female butterfly on the right, which the male on the left doesn't have. From PLoS Genet. Jul 2013; 9(7): e1003620.
 A dog’s nose is 300 times more powerful than a human nose, so it’s no wonder that dogs use their incredibly advanced sense of smell to do some very important jobs. In Super Sniffers, Dorothy Hinshaw Patent explores the various ways specific dogs have put their super sniffing ability to use: from bedbug sniffers to explosive detectors to life-saving allergy detectors . . . and more. This dynamic photo-essay includes first-hand accounts from the people who work closely with these amazing dogs. For more information, click here. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more. MLA 8 Citation Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "Smelling Feet or Smelly Feet?" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 23 Jan. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/ Smelling-Feet-or-Smelly-Feet. 
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 You can see how little fruit is inside a wild banana. You probably eat bananas at least once a week—they are the most popular of all fruits, even surpassing the apple. But have you ever noticed that bananas have no seeds? Probably not. You just peel them and enjoy their soft, seedless flesh without even thinking about seeds. If you’d been strolling through a tropical forest in New Guinea thousands of years ago and reached up to pluck a wild banana snack, you wouldn’t have wanted to eat it. The banana ancestors had big hard seeds surrounded by a small amount of sweet flesh, not worth peeling. Sometimes, however, plants appeared with fruit that had no seeds. Over time, people cherished these seedless fruits and grew the plants for their own use. The banana plant sends up a central stalk surrounded by very large leaves, then flowers at the tip. The flowers produce a heavy load of bananas without being pollinated. Then the stalk dies. Meanwhile, the stalk sends out side shoots that become new plants. That’s a form of cloning, meaning that all of a banana plant’s progeny are genetically identical, both to their parent and to one another. The ancestors of the modern banana could reproduce in the usual way, so their seeds contained mixtures of DNA from the mother plant and DNA from another plant’s pollen. This “sexual reproduction” allows for the genes of the plants to be combined in new ways. If a disease came along, it might kill most of the plants, but some others could have natural resistance and survive. Because it lacks seeds, the banana has gotten into trouble. Back in the 1950s, an especially sweet and tasty variety called the Gros Michel was the commercial banana. But a devastating fungus came along and killed the plants and contaminated the soil. Growers then chose another variety, Cavendish, which resisted the disease. But now a wilt called Panama disease has shown up that kills the Cavendish plants. And because bananas lack genetic diversity and because they don’t develop seeds that mix up their genes, the Cavendish has no way of defending itself. Banana growers are doing what they can to stop the spread of the disease, however, and up to now they have been successful. But don’t be surprised if in a few years the bananas you buy look and taste different. Luckily, there are other varieties out there, like small “finger” bananas and larger red-skinned fruits, that you can already buy in places like Hawaii.
 Dorothy Hinshaw Patent's new nonfiction picture book about horses has a fresh focus: how people over the ages have decorated horses in special ways. Organized into three categories—warfare and hunting, performance and competition, performance, and ceremony—the book introduces horses such as the chariot-pulling war horse of the Persians to the rose-decorated winner of the Kentucky Derby. For more information, click here. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more. MLA 8 Citation Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "The Flaw in the Seedless Banana." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 21 Dec. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/ the-nonfiction-minute/The-Flaw-in-the-Seedless-Banana. Accessed 21 Dec. 2017.  
“Whatever happens to this single animal, let him always remind us that the fate of all living things on Earth is in human hands.” These words, inscribed on a panel by the enclosure where the last of his race, the Pinta Island tortoise called Lonesome George, are no longer needed. George died on June 24, 2012, at an undetermined age, but likely more than 100 years. Even so, his actual death is merely a symbol of extinction, since he was the only one of his kind left. Without a mate for George, this species was doomed. Perhaps George’s death, however, will impress people with the power of our own species to doom or to save others. The thoughtless short-term thinking so common among humans ignores the long-term effects of our actions. During the 1800s, whalers, fur sealers, and other seafaring folks raided the Galapagos Islands for food. The giant land tortoises that populated the islands were perfect for long-term storage, as they could survive for a year or more on a ship without eating or drinking. Their diluted urine provided drinking water as well. The Pinta tortoise population was hit the hardest by this exploitation because Pinta is the farthest north of the islands and thus the last one visited when the sailors left for the open sea. By 1959 the tortoises had just about disappeared from Pinta. Some fishermen released three goats there, knowing they would reproduce to make island meat once more available to ships. The goat population exploded, devastating the island vegetation and dooming any animals that depended on it for survival. In 1979, a scientist studying snails came across George, who was soon brought to the Tortoise Center on nearby Santa Cruz Island for protection. But hopes of finding a mate for George and thus saving his species faded with the years, and Lonesome George became what he remains after his death, a symbol of careless exploitation by humans. Now, after careful restoration of his remains, Lonesome George was on exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in 2015, after which he was returned to Ecuador. The plaque overlooking his old corral now reads, “We promise to tell your story and to share your conservation message.”  In the early stages of the taxidermy process, multiple casts of Lonesome George’s extremities were taken for future reference. © AMNH/R. Mickens
 Lonesome George was recently on view in New York City's Museum’ of Natural History's 4th floor Astor Turret. © AMNH/R. Mickens  Some good news! Unlike the Pinta subspecies, conservationists have managed to help bring back the tortoises on the Galapagos island of Espanola from a low of only 16 to a population of more than 1,000 now living on their home island. Here, scientists are recording information about the tortoises in their native environment. Photo : Flickr: Sebastian Keynes via Christian Zeigler  Read how one endangered species got returned to its natural home and thrived in Dorothy's book, When the Wolves Returned: Restoring Nature's Balance in Yellowstone. She says " I loved writing this book, which describes the positive changes in the ecology of the park that are happening since the wolves came back--healthier willows, more beavers and small predators, more song birds, and more. Wolves have also returned to several western states around Yellowstone, including Montana, and their presence there is also helping restore the natural environment." Dorothy Patent is a member of Authors on Call. You can bring her to your school via our Zoom Room. Here's a link to her program on wolves. MLA 8 Citation Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "Lonesome George: The Face of Extinction." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 27 Nov. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/ Lonesome-George-the-face-of-extinction.  
How often do you check your cell phone or email each day? Use Twitter or Facebook? Can you stand not to “stay in touch” for even one day? We’re used to being able to hear from people anywhere in the world at any time, with just a few taps on a keyboard or telephone pad. Through most of human history people could only communicate when they were within shouting distance. When alphabets came along, our ancestors could create messages on stone or wood and later on parchment (made from animal skin), or paper, made from wood pulp. Then, of course, the message had to get from one person to another by way of a messenger. When public mail came along, it made that process much easier and more reliable. That’s where things stood for a long time. Imagine being a soldier in 1804 joining explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their epic trek across the west to the Pacific Coast. This was territory almost totally unknown at the time to European Americans. You’ve left behind your family and all your friends. Now you have no way of finding out what happened to those dear to you. Did your father or mother die? Did a sister get married? How many babies were born? Your loved ones get to be a bit luckier, since in the spring of 1805, the keel boat that carried the expedition to Indian villages for the winter is sent back down the Missouri River with a small crew, and you get a chance to write notes to your loved ones, reassuring them that you are okay. A lot can happen during a 2½ year span like the one endured by members of the expedition! Finally, in September of 1806, you and your colleagues return to the St. Louis area and find out that most people assumed you were all dead. Now you must figure out as quickly as possible how to reconnect with family and friends. It won’t be easy, since they don’t know you are alive, and you don’t know where they are after so long. How can you even locate everyone you care about? Think about it: If you didn’t have email or a phone of any kind, whose messages would you miss the most? And who would you most wish you could tell about these events in your life?  The Lewis and Clark Expedition followed the Missouri River through miles and miles of vast prairie like this one, full of amazing wild animals like these bison.  This postage stamp honors the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition. And, no, they could not have used a stamp on a letter to send news home. The first US postage stamps weren't issued until 1847.  Dorothy has written about how the horse changed the lives of the Plains Indians and everything that followed. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom,a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.  MLA 8 Citation Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "Keeping in Touch." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 4 Oct. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/keeping-in-touch. 
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a wolf? You’re born in a cozy, dark den under the ground, probably along with at least one brother or sister. Your eyes are closed shut, but you can smell and feel your way over to your mother to drink sweet, warm milk from her teats. Your father and older brothers and sisters bring food from their hunts to feed your mother. Your eyes open in about two weeks, but you can’t see much in the darkness of the den. You nap a lot, snuggled up to your siblings and your mom. Then, about a week later, your mother leads you all out of the den into the sunshine. How different it is up here! Now you explore the wild world, wandering among the trees, lapping water from a creek, wrestling and tumbling with your brothers and sisters. After you get bigger and stronger, you and your family leave the den and move to a safe outdoor area. It’s scary at first, being in a strange new place with no dark den for comfort. An older brother or sister watches over you and the other pups while the rest of the family, or pack, goes hunting. When the hunters return you rush up and lick their faces and they share the meat they got on the hunt. All the older wolves in the pack let you climb all over them and nip their ears and tails while they take care of you, protecting you from danger. All that good meat helps you grow into a big, strong wolf, with thick, shiny fur. In the fall, you go along on the hunt and learn how to find game and how best to catch it. Hunting is exciting but dangerous. You or other family members might get kicked by a deer or stomped on by a moose. But if you get injured, the other wolves take care of you until you recover. You are family, and family is what matters.  Grey wolf. © Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, 2014
Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.  MLA 8 Citation Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "What's It Like Being a Wolf?" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 27 Sept. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/whats-it-like-being-a-wolf. |
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