28

Ask a Crowd
When it comes to
predictions, groups
can beat experts
by Jennifer Stephan

FEATURES
10 16 36 44
Backyard Weather Seeing It What Happened in Can Cats Predict
Watchers Coming Galveston? Earthquakes?
Citizen scientists A new strategy for Tracking hurricanes, Are animals’ powers
make a difference. tornado forecasts. 1900 and now. fact or folklore?
by Sue Gagliardi by Joseph Taylor by Peg Lopata by Diana Lynn
 JULY/AUGUST 2021
EPARTMENTS
DEPARTMENTS Volume 25, Issue 06
DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL James M. “Libra” O’Connor

2 Parallel U:
EDITOR
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Johanna “Sagittarius” Arnone
Kathryn “Aries” Hulick
Keep It In the Cloud CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Tracy “Cancer” Vonder Brink
by Caanan Grall ASSISTANT EDITOR Emily “Aries” Cambias
ART DIRECTOR Nicole “Aries” Welch
6 Muse News DESIGNERS Erin “Sagittarius” Hookana
by Elizabeth Preston Caleb “Aries” Olson
Shavan “Aquarius” Spears
20 Do the Math: CARTOONIST Caanan “Pisces” Grall
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS David “Gemini” Stockdale
Behind the Curtain with
Bayesian Statistics BOARD OF ADVISORS

by Dani Glidewell ONTARIO INSTITUTE FOR STUDIES IN EDUCATION,

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Carl Bereiter
22 Science@Work: ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Ashton Robinson Cook John A. Brinkman
NATIONAL CREATIVITY NETWORK
by Kathryn Hulick Dennis W. Cheek

24 Art Space: COOPERATIVE CHILDREN’S BOOK CENTER, A LIBRARY

OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF
Right Whale Doodle WISCONSIN–MADISON
K. T. Horning
by Karen Romano Young FREUDENTHAL INSTITUTE
Jan de Lange
40 Science@Work: FERMILAB
Robyn Heffernan Leon Lederman
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
by Peg Lopata Sheilagh C. Ogilvie

47 Your Tech WILLIAMS COLLEGE

Jay M. Pasachoff
by Kathryn Hulick UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Paul Sereno
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Cloud Watching “Doodle Space,” text and art © 2012 by Karen Romano Young; “Last Slice,” text © 2012 by Nancy
Kangas.
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Someone’s Fortune
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 PARALLEL U CAANAN GRALL

2
 Comic Connoisseur
At the time of writing this,
I have only two Muse issues,
January and February 2020. I
Muse Mail

have a sister and her nickname is

Cate! The last picture in Parallel
U, February 2020 gave me tons
of laughs. I loved Aarti’s costume
in it, too. I am a Mystick. I am
founder of Magicland, which has
imagination rooms/worlds in
it. By the way, it looks to me like
O and Cate are related in some
way. I loved the Tech Desk news
item “Making Better Blood.” It’s
LETTER really interesting. Also, I’m way

Delver of the Deep of the

MONTH
above the regular 3rd grade level
in reading.
My name’s Jack, I’m 11, and I live in the I found a type of bunny that’s
biggest city in the United States (in related to the HPBs, but it’s red. I
square miles). Also, I’m a human. I’ve only gotten four Muse call it the Red Bunny, or RB. The
magazines and I already LOVE Muse. I’ll sit down and read RBs are very gifted in making
them for hours! They have new interesting information every stuff. Maybe they could teleport
HPBs somewhere with a new
month, and at the beginning of every month, I find myself invention?
at the mailbox hoping my new Muse is here. I love to study —L. / age 8 / Oregon
marine animals, especially whales and giant squids, so I was _________________
EXTREMELY EXCITED when I got “Mysteries of the Deep”
[January 2020] and read about the giant squid. Did you know Notes from Camp
that sperm whales have been found with scratches on the inside Me and my cabin mates from
of their stomach because of the giant squids that they swallowed Cabin 9 at Camp Half-Blood
alive? Giant squids and sperm whales are about the same size. want to say that Muse rules!
Can you do an article on all of
Because I love animals, I’m concerned about the amount of the kinds of mythology? If you
littered materials in the ocean. I’m the kind of person that gets put this in the dreaded Fan
mad when someone throws away a water bottle instead of Mail Pit, Chiron and Dionysus
recycling it. Unfortunately, my school has no recycling bins. I will send an army, led by me, to
try to pick up as much littered waste as I can, but there’s still DESTROY ALL OF MUSE HQ!
14 billion pounds of plastic in the ocean. Could you please Sorry, I think too much exposure
write an issue about recycling and how schools should have to the Ares Cabin has made
recycling bins instead of only trash cans? If this letter doesn’t get me a tad crazy. But, like I said,
the army will consist of, me, all
published, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . I’ll just be really sad. Plus, I don’t want to of the cabins and ALL of the
write a threat to my new favorite magazine. So if you really want nymphs and satyrs!
to make me sad, just leave this out of the magazine. —CAROLL AND THE HEPHAESTUS
—JACK / age 11 / Florida CABIN / New York
P.S. My favorite part is finding the false story and reading P.S. Aarti, What is YOUR
the Muse Mail. fave kind of mythology? (Mine is
P.S.S. The biggest city in area is Jacksonville, FL. Greek, of course . . .)

Hey Jack. I know how you feel about plastic in the oceans—the I love reading all kinds of
trash worries me too. Did you know that some artists have created mythology, but some of
sculptures out of plastic retrieved from the sea to call attention to the my favorites to read are
problem? What’s the best way to make a change at your school? Maybe Maori myths, especially
you can organize a recycling club or find a mentor willing to help. the stories about Maui.
—WHATSI —AARTI

3
 The fact is that the
children who read
Muse may, one day,
grow up and become the
Muse Mail
scientists researching
ways to save our planet.
Climate Change
for Muse Readers
I am a huge fan of your
magazine, and I admire
how you teach kids about
important issues in the field
of science, technology, and
art in a fun captivating way,
using photos, comics, jokes,
pictures, and short snippets
of text.
The purpose of this letter
is to try and persuade you
to focus your lens on a very
pressing issue: climate
change. I am aware of the fact
that you did publish an issue
on climate change in February
of 2017, but since then
there has been a landslide
of new data and numerous
natural disasters caused by
climate change. The fact is
that the children that read
Muse are the same children
who may, one day, grow up
and become the scientists
researching ways to save
our planet or the politicians
voting for laws that are more
environmentally friendly, as
well as the people putting
solar panels on their house,
or buying electric cars. But
4
this will only happen if, from
a young age, they are warned
of the dangers of climate
change, and what they can do
about it. Your magazine has
the power to do this, and I
implore you to utilize it.
What can 9- to 14-year-olds
realistically do about climate
change? Here are a few things
I have done: I am a vegetarian,
I always turn off lights when I
exit a room, I bike often, I try
to stay away from plastic (as
much as I can), and whenever
an opportunity comes up
for me to educate people on
climate change, I take it. These
are just a few things that you
can urge your readers to do
that could make a massive
difference. Climate change is
not something we can wait
for, and it is crucial for every
single one of us, no matter
how small, to be educated on
this topic, and start taking
steps to help save our planet.
Due to human activity,
our glaciers are melting,
our oceans are rising and
swallowing up coastal areas,
there are extreme droughts,
wildfires, and heatwaves,
and all around us nature is
slipping away, and animals
are going extinct. And all this
can be traced back to human
activities. I greatly enjoyed your
issues on creatures of the deep,
exotic animals, and forests,
but I’m afraid you can’t write
about those if none of them
exist anymore. I am aware and
grateful of how you include in a
few of your issues a note about
climate change, but a note is no
longer good enough.
I live in northern California
and over the years almost all of
the tide pools I used to play in
as a young kid have disappeared
due to rising sea levels. What’s
more, every year we have a
season of wildfires where the
air quality is so bad that school
is sometimes canceled in many
schools across California. I
also grew up in the 2011–2017
drought, so some of my earliest
memories are of our whole
neighborhood letting their
gardens dry to preserve water
and sitting in class while our
teachers tell us about how we
need to save water due to the
extreme drought instead of
teaching us math. And these are
just a few of the ways in which
climate change has affected my
life. And I know that if we don’t
take action there will be many
more, and much more extreme
instances. Thank you for taking
the time to read this letter, and
I hope you take into account
what I have said.
—RACHEL / age 14
You’re absolutely right Rachel.
Climate change affects people
of all ages, everywhere. A
collection of Greta Thunberg’s
speeches is called No One
Is Too Small to Make a
Difference. I agree and
applaud the ways YOU
are making a difference.
—MS. ACORN

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE
DOG BREED?
Going Swimmingly
I love Muse magazine even
though I have only received
one so far. I really like it
because of the interesting
stories and articles. I swim for
MSA and the swim and dive
team. I love dogs. My favorite
dog breed is the boxer. We have
two boxers. Their ages are 3
months old and 9 years old.
I would really love for you to
do an article on dog breeds or
aerospace engineering. Please
do not put this in the FMP or I
will send 6,000 wolves to attack
you.
—JENNIFER P. / age 10 / Alabama
Dogs are the best! I
don’t think I have a
favorite breed, but I
do have a soft spot for
greyhounds—I’d love to
run as fast as they do.
—O
I simply love dire
wolves! Oh, wait, are
we only talking about
breeds that exist in
the present day?
—CATE
Science Fan,
Science Fiction
My name is Lucas and I love
Muse! I live in Pennsylvania,
and I got a subscription to
Muse for my birthday. My
birthday is on Christmas!
I love reading and writing
long adventure/fantasy/
action stories and watching
action and superhero
movies. I’d really love it if
you could publish an issue
on robots or AI, or black hole
and wormhole theories. Or
publishing one magazine on
time travel, which I find very
interesting (both time travel
to the future and to the past).
I spent a lot of time on this
letter, so please don’t throw
this in the FMP (note how this
letter is addressed to Muse
magazine, not the Fan Mail
Pit!). If you do throw it in to
the FMP, I will use my very
advanced technology from
Mars to hack the HPBs’ brains
to destroy Muse HQ. Just
kidding . . . I don’t have any
Martian technology, would
hate to have to destroy Muse
HQ, because that would mean
no more Muse. Thank you
for publishing an awesome
magazine!
—LUCAS G. / age 14
I love reading adventure
stories too. I especially
like spy stories and
tales of people coming
together after a
disaster. Time travel
stories are great, too,
although Cate always reads
them over my shoulder and
makes sarcastic comments.
—WHATSI
Itemized and Awesome
First things first, I am all of
the below:
* Sith Lord with an
awesome lightsaber
* Nerd/Geek (whichever
one you prefer)
* Proof that Slytherins can
be great people
* Disney and Marvel
Villain
* Witch
* AMAZING IN
ABSOLUTELY EVERY
WAY
I was wondering if for June
you could do something for
Pride month and/or something
for Women’s History month
in March. I really love how
inclusive this magazine can
be. I think the fact that you
share stories of people from all
races, ethnicities, orientations,
fandoms, genders, and social
classes is utterly prodigious,
and you guys do an excellent
job of it.
—AOIFE / age 12 / New York
Something to say?
Send letters to Muse Mail,
1 East Erie Street, Suite 525,
PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611,
or email them to
muse@cricketmedia.com.
5
 BY ELIZABETH PRESTON
Muse News
text © 2021 by Elizabeth Preston
TECH DESK
Snagging Space Junk
I
MAGINE YOU COULD TAKE A
ROCKET INTO OUTER SPACE AND
SEE THE BEAUTIFUL VIEW: Earth’s
surface far below you. The stars,
brighter than ever. Thousands and
thousands of pieces of trash.
OK, maybe it wouldn’t all be beautiful.
A swarm of space junk orbits our planet.
Some pieces of junk are broken-down
satellites. Equipment from rocket launches
stays in space too. There are about 23,000
pieces of junk circling our planet today. If
any of that trash collides with another
object, such as an important satellite, it
could create a big problem.
6
Ooh, an
outer space
de-clutterer.
About time!
That’s why the European Space Agency
is taking a step toward a solution It’s
working with a company on a
mission called ClearSpace-1. In
2025, the ClearSpace-1
One of
spacecraft will launch. It will these stories
fly to a certain refrigerator- is FALSE. Ca
sized piece of space junk left spot which
over from a European rocket The answe
launch. The ClearSpace-1 on page
spacecraft will extend a giant
claw to grab the junk. Then it
will drag the junk back down t
Earth’s atmosphere, where bot
will burn up for good.
 What’s
that
smell?

POO

The Doodoo Defense

HAS A BEE EVER STUNG YOU?
You probably got the message: Stay
away! But some bee enemies don’t
mind being stung. Bees may need to
fight these foes with stinkier tools.
Scientists studied Asian
honeybees in Vietnam. These bees
have an enemy: giant hornets. The
hornets may attack hives and kill
and eat the bees. Sometimes bees
can kill a giant hornet by forming a
ball of buzzing bees around it until
it overheats. The researchers
discovered another defense against
hornets: poop.
Honeybees collected little clumps
of animal dung that they found near
their hive. They used the poo to
make tiny spots around the hive’s
entrance. When there were lots of
poop spots stuck on a hive, hornets
were less likely to attack. Some
chemical in the dung may keep
hornets away.

ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

Electric Eels Team Up

ELECTRIC EELS ARE FISH WITH A STUNNING SKILL. They
can use electricity to zap other fish before eating them. Usually,
electric eels live and hunt alone. But researchers in Brazil
discovered electric eels doing something extra surprising:
hunting in a pack.
The eels lived at the bottom of a deep river. Then at dawn or
dusk, the eels sometimes met up in a shallow pool by the
riverbank, 100 or more swimming together.
They swam in circles, herding smaller fish, which clumped
together in a ball. Then the eels attacked. A few at a time, they
zapped the ball of prey, then gobbled up the stunned fish. Fish
rarely work together to hunt, so the new discovery is—ahem—
shocking.

7
 UNUSUAL CRITTERS

Not All Giraffes

Muse News

Are Tall
SOMETIMES AN ANIMAL’S SKELETON DOESN’T
GROW TO THE USUAL SIZE. This condition is called
dwarfism. It shows up in animals including cows,
dogs, pigs, and rats. Humans can have dwarfism too.
Scientists almost never see dwarfism in wild animals.
Recently, though, scientists found the first-ever dwarf
giraffes.
One of the wild giraffes was roaming a park in
Uganda. The other was in Namibia. Researchers
noticed that both of these giraffes were unusually
short. They used cameras and harmless lasers to 9 ft, roughly
measure the giraffes without bothering them. Both
animals had long necks. But they had extra-short half the size
bones in their legs. of a typical
Scientists don’t know why these two giraffes grew giraffe
the way they did. The giraffes had safely grown into
adults—just small ones.

But short
is relative.

8
 PHYSIOLOGY

Talk to the Hand

SOME FORTUNE TELLERS CLAIM THEY CAN
LEARN A LOT ABOUT YOU—and even
predict the future—by studying lines on the
palm of your hand. Now scientists say there
might be a little bit of truth to that.
Researchers used high-definition
photographs to analyze lines on the palms of
more than 4,500 adults in the United States,
Australia, and South Korea. The subjects also
filled out questionnaires about their lives.
There were some surprising results.
People with a Y-shape at the base of their
dominant hand (that’s the hand you write
with) were more likely to be tall as adults.
People who had very deep creases on the
palms of both hands were more likely to have
three or more kids. And—strangely—people
with a line ending between the index and
middle finger on their non-dominant hand
were more likely to be dog owners.
Next, the researchers hope to learn what
genes might be behind these patterns.

UP IN SPACE

Counting Craters
RESEARCHERS TRAINED A COMPUTER PROGRAM That’s the ne
Go to page 4
TO LOOK AT PHOTOS OF THE MOON’S SURFACE see if you spo
AND HUNT FOR CRATERS, ranging from little the false sto
dents to giant pits. An earlier list of moon craters,
which humans had counted, included about 9,000
craters. The computer program found more than
117,000.

9
 by Sue Gagliardi

EN SCIENTISTS MAKE A DIFFERENCE BY TRACKING

SNOW AND HAIL

n July 1997, a devastating flash flood hit part of

Fort Collins, Colorado. Within 31 hours, a storm
dumped over a foot of rain in a small area of the
city near Spring Creek. Meanwhile, the rest of city
had little rain. The local weather station, located
st a handful of miles away from the Spring Creek area,
easured only 2 inches (5 cm) of rain. Weather prediction
aps and official observations didn’t detect the huge
ount of precipitation falling on this neighborhood in
text © 2021 by Sue Gagliardi

me. Because experts didn’t have any information about

e rainfall, they were slow to warn residents living near
pring Creek.
 The heavy rainfall caused the
creek to spill over its banks. The
floodwaters created a raging path of
destruction. A train was washed off
its tracks. Homes, businesses, and
parts of the Colorado State University
campus took extensive damage. In a
mobile home community, the water
level surged to 5 feet (1.5 m) within
minutes. Tragically, five people lost
their lives in the flood.
CoCoRaHS Is Born
In response to this shocking flood,
climatologist Nolan Doesken took
action. He decided to find a way to the
get the rainfall measurements experts
would need to predict a similar type
of flood in the future. Doesken at
that time was director at the Fort
Collins Weather Station and the
assistant state climatologist for the
Colorado Climate Center. He realized
that weather scientists had little
information about wide differences in
the amount of rainfall in local areas.
So he asked ordinary people to help
collect this information. Through
Doesken’s initiative, the Community
Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow
Network (CoCoRaHS) was born.
Founded in 1998, CoCoRaHS is
a network of over 20,000 volunteers
who collect data on their local
weather. The volunteer network
12
includes weather watchers across
the continental United States as well
as in Canada, Puerto Rico, the US
Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas.
Who uses their data? Professionals
who forecast the weather and water
supply, researchers, and scientists.
The National Weather Service uses
the data to predict weather patterns
and events and to issue local weather
warnings that help keep people and
property safe. CoCoRaHS strives to
provide better mapping and reporting
of intense storms in local areas in real
time, when the information is most
critical.
Be a Backyard
Weather Watcher
Sound important and interesting? You
can help too! People of all ages can
participate in real, hands-on science
by measuring and reporting daily
precipitation through CoCoRaHS.
Visit the group’s website with an adult
to learn how to get started.
Recruiting lots of volunteers
is a crucial part of monitoring
precipitation because we all live on
different spots on Earth’s surface.
When a volunteer from a new
address joins, scientists can “see”
precipitation in a place they would
 HOW MUCH RAIN FELL NEAR YOU?
Have you ever noticed it raining on your side of the street while the
other side stays sunny and dry? Believe it or not, the rainfall outside
your home can differ from how much rain falls at your friend’s place
down the street. Even with all the high-tech weather instruments used
to measure precipitation, meteorologists rely on citizen scientists to
report the weather in their small corners of the world.
You can help by measuring the precipitation in your own backyard
or balcony. Add to the fun by challenging your friends and family to
a precipitation prediction contest! The more you estimate and check
your predictions, the better you will hone your weather predicting
skills.
CoCoRaHS founder Nolan Doesken shares how he and his son
enjoyed backyard weather watching in the early days of CoCoRaHS.
“When CoCoRaHS first started, my son was 10 years old. We started
a daily contest to see who could most accurately guess how much it had rained,” says Doesken. “We guessed based on
visual clues like pavement wetting, puddles, storm water runoff, mud, etc. Then we’d go check the gauge and tally our
scores.”
Doesken adds, “By the time he was 12, he could estimate daily rainfall with surprising accuracy—better than many, if
not most, of my professional meteorological colleagues.”
“We also really enjoy shoveling snow and, in the process of pushing and lifting, we love to estimate snow density and
water content and then compare that with our measurements,” says Doesken.
Doesken and his now-adult son still enjoy this challenge. “It’s not exactly prediction,” says Doesken, “. . . but it’s close.
Furthermore, it makes rain gauge–reading into a fun game.”
Once you’ve collected and measured the precipitation near your home, you can put the rainwater to good use. Try using
the rainwater to water plants and flowers or to fill a birdbath. What other uses can you find for the rainwater you collect?

CoCoRaHS rain gauges are plastic

not otherwise have access to—such
as your backyard or the parking lot
behind your apartment building! The
precipitation data volunteers gather
becomes more and more valuable as
more and more people volunteer to be
CoCoRaHS weather watchers.
How Volunteers Collect
CoCoRaHS Data
CoCoRaHS provides online training
for people of all ages who want to
become backyard weather watchers.
Volunteers need a CoCoRaHS-
approved rain gauge to get started.
cylinders that collect rainwater. They
consist of an outer cylinder and an
inner measuring tube. Together these
elements can measure up to 11 inches
(28 cm) of precipitation. Volunteers
mount their gauge on a post in their
backyards.
By measuring rainfall with a rain
gauge, volunteers contribute to a
vast collection of weather data. Each
CoCoRaHS volunteer enters their
precipitation data into an online
database at the same time each
day. It gets mapped and analyzed
immediately. If a huge blizzard or
rainstorm happens, they report it in
real time. This important information
may not otherwise be available to
scientists, weather forecasters, and
many organizations. Experts use this
data to predict weather patterns and
issue local weather warnings.
What about when it’s not raining?
Volunteers report zero precipitation.
Dry, sunny days are just as important
as wet days for data collection. Long
periods of zero rainfall can help
organizations to assess areas on the

13
 verge of drought. The National
Drought Mitigation Center
in Lincoln, Nebraska, and the
US Department of Agriculture
use CoCoRaHS data to assess
drought conditions and the
effects on crops.

Snow and Hail

There’s more to measure than
just rain! Snow measurements
provide important data for
the National Weather Service,
public works departments, and
scientists. CoCoRaHS weather
watchers place a flat board on
the ground before snowfall and
then measure the depth of snow cylinder before it snows. Then, as Volunteers in cold climates measure
that falls onto it using a snow soon as it stops snowing, they melt and report the amount of new
ruler or yardstick as soon as the the snow that fell into the larger outer snowfall and old snow on the ground
snow stops. cylinder by adding a premeasured each day.
Volunteers also measure the amount of warm water. Subtracting In some states, CoCoRaHS
water content of the snow that the premeasured water amount volunteers also collect data on
collects in the rain gauge. To do from the total measurement reveals hail. Volunteers use hail pads—
this, volunteers remove the inner how much snowmelt they collected. Styrofoam blocks covered with

14

thick aluminum foil—as surfaces
to collect information during
hailstorms. As hail hits the pad,
it leaves indentations on the pad.
These dents look a lot like craters
on the moon and provide valuable
data on the size and character of
hail produced in the storm. NASA
scientists review hail pads and
CoCoRaHS data to determine
the risk of hail at Kennedy Space
Center. You can’t launch a rocket
in a hailstorm! Engineers consider
hail pad data when designing
hail-resistant airplanes. And some
volunteers use leftover hail pads to
create art with the help of nature.
20 Years and Growing
More than two decades after it
began, CoCoRaHS continues to
collect valuable weather data.
“CoCoRaHS has now been around
long enough that some of our
original ‘kid’ participants now
is
Try
e
exp
WATER IN THE CLOUDS
Ever wonder how much water is in a cloud?
Try this experiment to get an idea of how much
water a cloud can hold.
You will need cotton balls, an eyedropper, and
a small cup of water.
First, make a prediction of the number of drops
of water you think the cotton ball can hold before
water begins to drip from the cotton ball.
Then hold the cotton ball over the cup of water
the eyedropper with water. Use the eyedropper to
drops of water to the cotton ball. Count the drops
you add them.
Keep adding and counting the drops of water u
entire cotton ball is saturated, or full of water. You
the cotton ball is saturated when you see water dr
the bottom. Record your results.
Try this several times with new cotton balls. Inv
friends and family members to make predictions
and try the experiment too.
Compare your predictions with the actual num
each cotton ball can hold. What do you notice? Are you surprised
by your results?
Like the cotton balls, clouds can hold a tremendous amount of water.
In a thunderstorm, the updraft, or rising column of air, may be extremely
strong. Stronger updrafts can support a greater weight of water in a
cloud. Once the weight of the water can no longer be supported by the
updraft, the water falls as rain.
have families of their own and are continue to grow. Being a part
getting them involved,” Doesken says. of CoCoRaHS is a big deal. Your
“We have several examples of folks backyard rainfall really matters.
who started as children and now are
professional meteorologists or in Sue Gagliardi writes fiction, nonfiction,
related fields.” and poetry for children. She teaches 3rd
Joining CoCoRaHS grade and lives in Hatboro,
with your family Pennsylvania, with her
and friends is husband and son. As a
a fun way to CoCoRaHS weather
help scientists For more information watcher, she wakes
every day!
You can
and to become a before dawn to
measure the
help this CoCoRaHS volunteer weather in her
important
organization
weather watcher, visit little corner of
the world.
cocorahs.org.
15
text © 2021 by Joseph Taylor
 As the tornado sped northeast, it grew in size and speed can occur just about anywhere on the planet in the right
and demolished the small town of Annapolis, leveling 78 conditions.
houses. Next it slammed into the town of Biehle. There, a From 1885 to 1938, tornado forecasts were banned in the
school with 25 students and their teacher was lifted up into United States. Officials believed the dreaded word “tornado”
the air and carried the length of several soccer fields. As the would cause panic among the public and that tornado
building splintered in midair, the kids and teacher were flung forecasting was simply not possible.
back to Earth. Somehow, each one of them survived. Most experts today agree that predicting tornadoes—
The tornado grew darker, louder, bigger. People observed and issuing tornado watches and warnings based on those
not a slender, fluffy white spiral but an enormous, near mile- predictions—saves many lives. Warnings give people a chance
wide black cloud. It sounded at moments like screaming to protect themselves before the worst arrives. Numerous
freight trains and acted like a monstrous vacuum, sucking up advances relating to tornado forecasting have been made
and slinging debris of every imaginable sort: roofs of buildings, in the past half-century. Yet no one technique has proven
shards of glass, and entire cars and tractors. As it was traveling completely effective. Could a new type of forecasting
at more than 73 miles per hour (117 km/h) and producing approach offer a whole new layer of protection?
winds of about 300 mph (483 km/h), no one could outrun it.
The Tri-State tornado, as it became known, sputtered to an Tools of the Tornado Trade
end in southwest Indiana, three and a half hours after forming. Today, Doppler radar can help forecasters detect rotation, a
By that time, it had traveled through three states, leaving 695 precursor to tornadoes, inside thunderstorms. Forecasting
people dead and over 2,000 injured. Considered the deadliest equipment turns Doppler radar data into images of
single tornado in US history, the Tri-State tornado scarred storms. When a tornado is forming, it takes the shape of
the people of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana and terrified a fishhook, called a hook echo, in these images. But the
the nation. radar must be near the storm for a hook echo to be visible,
so it misses some. Weather satellites can’t spot individual
The Shape of Things tornadoes but they can identify supercells, a type of severe
A tornado is a powerfully spinning column of air that descends thunderstorm with a rotating updraft that is often—but not
from a cloud, usually in a thunderstorm, and touches the always—associated with tornadoes. Another way to detect
Earth’s surface. Sometimes they appear as funnels, but other tornadoes is with weather balloons, which allow forecasters
times they take on the appearance of a dark, low cloud, as was to gather information about wind speeds, air pressure, and
the case with the Tri-State tornado. More than 75 percent of temperatures higher above the Earth’s surface. But, with
the world’s tornadoes strike the United States, often in an area only about 100 balloon-launch sites across the country, their
known as “Tornado Alley,” a swath of land running roughly coverage is limited. Humans, too, can help spot new tornadoes.
from northern Texas to South Dakota. Tornadoes, though, More than 350,000 trained volunteer storm spotters in the
US currently watch for tornadoes
and report signs of them to the
nearest National Weather Service
Destructive vortex forecast office.
Tornadoes develop out of thunderstorms, where there’s a steady, upward flow of warm, low-pressure These practices have
air. Some tornadoes consist of a single vortex, but other times multiple suction vortices revolve around a
tornado's center. helped to reduce the numbers
Overshooting top of lives lost from tornadoes.
1 Unstable conditions produce
an updraft of warm, moist air
Sometimes, though, a tornado
Anvil
warning comes too late.
2 As the storm forms, Unlike hurricanes, tornadoes
cooler air wrapping
in from behind causes Supercell don’t announce themselves
the rising air to spin; this on satellites days in advance.
is called a mesocyclone
They tend to be small, quick,
es oc yclo ne Cumulonimbus
3 As the mesocyclone M
clouds and short-lived, with most
intensifies, it may produce
violent rotating winds at
lasting less than ten minutes.
the surface — a tornado Meteorologists still don’t know
Downdraft
everything about how tornadoes
Downdraft
form and why some supercell
thunderstorms produce
tornadoes and others don’t.
Direction Wall cloud
Updraft Hail Rain
of storm Tornado The Tornado Forecaster
Vittorio (Victor) Gensini, a
Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Weather Underground; San Francisco State University, AccuWeather
tornado expert and professor
Graphic: Staff, TNS at Northern Illinois University,
18

has dedicated his career to improving
tornado forecasting. As a teenager, he
experienced his first significant tornado in
his hometown of Utica, Illinois, on April 20
2004 and saw the death and destruction it wrought; 8 people
were killed. He recalls wondering, “Why did this happen? How
did this happen? Were people prepared? How do we alert the
public for these events?”
Today Gensini heads a research group devoted to extended-
range forecasts of tornadoes. Made up of various experts in
different US locations, the team has been working to try to
accurately predict tornadoes weeks in advance. They believe
that if they can better anticipate when and where tornadoes
may occur, then schools, hospitals, electric utilities, and
airlines would have time to prepare.
The New Front of Subseasonal Forecasting
Today, meteorologists can forecast daily weather with good
accuracy four to eight days from the present day. But in the
9- to 12-day range, the task becomes more difficult, before
breaking down at day 14, according to Gensini. A few times a
year, forecasters step back from daily forecasting to examine
broad trends over the long-term, which is referred to as
seasonal forecasting. For instance, they might look at how
much sea ice is melting in the Arctic and whether the Pacific
Ocean is experiencing a periodic warming event known as
El Niño.
Seasonal forecasting helps envision climate trends six
weeks to seven months into the future. Daily forecasting
works through week two. So the three- to six-week period has
been left unaddressed by meteorologists. New subseasonal
forecasting seeks to bridge this chasm. No simple strategies
exist for the subseasonal timeframe, though. One way
Gensini’s team has approached this challenge is through
“ensemble” forecasting. They bring together a range of weather
and climate models to create the most probable predictions.
The team’s skill in creating and reading these models have
been honed by years of practice.
The Team’s Big Forecast
In 2013, two years before founding his forecast team, Gensini
helped determine that the Madden-Julian Oscillation, or
MJO, often happens before tornado
activity in the US. The MJO, first identified
by Roland Madden and Paul Julian in the
early 1970s, is a storm disturbance that
starts in the tropics and moves eastward,
completely circling Earth over a period of
to two months.
You can almost think of it like you’re
pool,” Gensini says of the MJO. “The
mosphere behaves just like a fluid.”
explains that someone bouncing
p and down on a float on one side of
pool will generate waves. The waves
will travel away from the person until
hey reach the other side of the pool.
The same thing happens when energy
d in the jet stream—bands of wind
pp of the atmosphere. The atmospheric
waves that are produced by a storm around Asia might
eventually reach the US and affect our weather.
In April 2019, Gensini’s team observed an MJO taking
shape from thunderstorms over the Indian Ocean. They
concluded it would likely lead to serious tornado activity
in the U.S. “We knew that three or four weeks later, given
the configuration of atmospheric weather patterns, it
was likely we were going to have a big, robust, prolonged
tornado event across the Central Plains,” says Gensini.
That’s exactly what happened. In May, a staggering
number of tornadoes, 374 in all, hit several states over
the course of almost two weeks.
Michael Ventrice, a meteorology expert at the
Weather Company, has told colleagues that Gensini’s
forecast marked the beginning of subseasonal forecasting
for severe weather. He describes this forecast as “a great
call” and “a skillful prediction.” The next test, Ventrice
says, will be whether this forecast can be repeated
consistently, with accurate predictions outnumbering
possible false alarms.
Gensini says one of the things he most enjoys
about tornado forecasting is also one of its biggest
challenges: no two weather patterns are ever the same.
“There’s always something new to look at, some new
weather phenomenon, some new disaster happening,”
he says. “We’re never going to be able to fully forecast
a tornado three weeks, four weeks in advance. But that
doesn’t mean we should stop trying to get there and
close the gap.”
Joseph Taylor is an award-winning contributor to Cricket who
lives in Southern California. Other than the tornadoes featured
in the movie Twister, he hasn’t experienced one. But his late
grandmother Frances Ferris endured many growing up on a
farm outside Wichita, Kansas. As her childhood occurred during
the period when tornadoes were not forecast, her family would
have to watch the skies before running to the storm cellar
for shelter.
 BY DANI GLIDEWELL
Do the Math
BEHIND THE CURTAIN
WITH BAYESIAN STATISTICS
What are statistics?
Why do we need them?
A prehistoric human crouches
on the African savannah.
Something moves in the corner
of her eye. A lion? She freezes
and readies her spear. But the
breeze blows, the grass shifts,
and she sees the “lion” was only
a trick of the light.
Humans see patterns and
connections everywhere. This
makes sense when you realize
that for most of our history,
a person who thought they
saw a lion got startled, while
20
a person who didn’t see a lion
got eaten. Better to err on the
side of caution and interpret
every unusual movement as a
lion, even if most of the time
no lion is really there. So how
can we find out if a pattern or
connection is meaningful or
not? To figure that out, people
invented statistics. Like stone
spears and modern computers,
statistics are tools. They let us
see the mathematical patterns
in systems too enormous and
complex to understand without
help, like Earth-spanning
weather systems or cities full
of people. We can use those
patterns to help predict the
future.
What Are Bayesian Statistics?
“The success of statistics is
obvious, especially in scientific
research,” says Wayne Stewart,
a statistics professor at the
University of Oklahoma. He uses
numbers and computer code
text © 2021 by Dani Glidewell
to teach people how to detect
complex patterns in data, even
when the data are messy or
complicated.
There are two statistical
frameworks, classical and
Bayesian. According to Stewart,
classical statistics focuses on
whatever experiment you’re
doing at the moment, so it
avoids biases from previous
work. Bayesian statistics
deliberately uses information
from previous work so scientists
can get as much information as
possible. Both can be useful.
Picture a basketball game.
Your team does great, the star
player makes amazing shots,
and your team wins. Everyone
cheers! If you use classical
statistics, you would look at
that game and conclude that
your team is pretty good. If you
use Bayesian statistics, you
would look at previous wins and
losses too.
“The general public doesn’t
really understand statistics.
People say you can prove
anything using statistics,” says
Stewart. “And my retort to that
is you can’t prove anything using
statistics. We’re not about proof.
We’re about giving evidence for
something.”
Bayesian Statistics Saving Lives
Scientists use statistics for
many things. These three
scientists use them to protect
people.
Michael Richman, a
meteorologist at the University
of Oklahoma, has developed
techniques for predicting
flooding from atmospheric
patterns. This is especially
important because global
warming has made the air
around the world warmer.
And warm air can hold more
moisture than cold air. As
a result, “when we do have
precipitation, we get a lot
more floods,” says Richman.
Advanced warnings of floods
can help the people who have
to make critical decisions about
controlling dams or ordering
citizens to evacuate.
Aaron Wendelboe is
like a disease detective.
He’s an infectious disease
epidemiologist who worked
at the Oklahoma State
Department of Health during
the COVID-19 pandemic. He
used statistics to help the state
manage the pandemic. “I had
been on the job for two days,
and the governor asked me to
meet with him to put together
a transmission dynamic model.”
He and his coworkers put
together a model that could
mathematically predict the
chance of one person passing
the disease to someone else.
Using Bayesian statistics, this
model successfully predicted
when cases would peak in
Oklahoma.
Michael Anderson, a
biostatistics professor at the
University of Oklahoma Health
Sciences Center, works with
infant health care. According
to Anderson, babies born
prematurely are more likely
to bleed in their brains. Mild
bleeding usually resolves on
its own, but severe cases can
lead to trouble seeing, hearing,
or learning. Anderson’s team
takes measurements of a baby’s
brain using a headband placed
around the head. Running
this data through statistical
models allows Anderson’s team
to predict future bleeding.
Then, they can take steps to
try to minimize it. “[It’s] really
rewarding,” he says.
How Can You Use Statistics?
Numbers, data, and patterns are
all around us. Statistics matter
both in and out of school.
“Sometimes when you’re
taking a math class, your
teacher tells you how to do
something, and it’s new and
it’s hard and you’re thinking,
‘Why do I have to know this?
When will I ever use it?’ Well, I
DON’T BE FOOLED
Some people try to make
their ideas more convincing
by inserting statistics that
seem to support those ideas.
They may leave out important
labels or use a graph that
makes a small effect look
huge (or a huge effect look
tiny). Wayne Stewart calls this
“misapplying” statistics. If
you are knowledgeable about
statistics, you’re more likely to
spot these problems.
was one of those kids. And in
epidemiology and statistics
I’ve actually been able to use
almost all of those ideas,” says
Wendelboe.
If you play or watch sports,
participate in school elections
or voting, or check the weather
forecast, you’re already using
statistics. “If you are not a
mathy person, that’s okay,” says
Anderson. “Take a look at some
areas that are interesting to
you. If you like sports, look at a
team and see if you can look at
some of the data on that team.”
You can even gather your own
data—on anything from art to
video games—and try using it
to make sense of a pattern.
So, what data do you want
to gather? What predictions
do you want to make today?
Because the world is full of
data, and you can start using it
right now.
Dani Glidewell is an aspiring
limnologist in Oklahoma. She spends
a statistically significant amount of
time playing with her dogs.
21
Science@Work

Cool award,
Dr. Cook.

by Kathryn Hulick

ASHTON ROBINSON COOK

METEOROLOGIST

Ashton Robinson Cook always knows when a tornado, hurricane, or winter storm is coming. It’s his job to
know. As a meteorologist, he analyzes weather data to figure out where and when storms are likely to hit.
Typical weather forecasting tools can look only up to a week ahead. But Cook has developed software called
WeatherDeep that can make predictions up to two months in advance. Cook was the first African American man
to earn a PhD in meteorology at the University of Oklahoma and also earned the 2017 American Association of
State Climatologists (AASC) Dissertation Award for his research on tornadoes.

22
HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE
YOUR JOB?
I forecast tornadoes for a
living. I tell people where
tornadoes are going to be in
a few days so they can get
prepared. I also forecast large
hail and thunderstorm wind
gusts.
________________
WHAT FASCINATES YOU
ABOUT TORNADOES?
They are one of the most
powerful forces of nature
that exist. Think about what
it takes to form one—all
the processes in the clouds
above. I’m in awe of that
power. I’ve chased supercells
at night, and sometimes
being out there in the inflow
of the storm is electrifying!
________________
WHEN DID YOU FIRST
BECOME INTERESTED
IN STORMS?
When I was three years old,
I lived in a mobile home
in southwest Little Rock,
Arkansas. A tornado picked
the trailer up and set us down
off the foundation. For a
while [my mother and I] were
trapped because there was
a blockage against the front
door. We had to get out the
back. Because of that, I was
always afraid of storms when
I was younger.
That fear turned into a
passion in middle school. I’d
read as much as I could about
storms and watch the Weather
Channel all the time. One day,
a violent tornado outbreak
occurred in Arkansas. I was
glued to the TV—watching
as much news coverage as
I could. I then warned my
family of one of the storms
headed on a beeline for us. I
did this well before the official
warning and emergency sirens
were sounded.
A couple of hours later, the storm just barely missed us. The next
day, we drove five minutes south and came across an incredible
damage path. Within the damage path in some spots everything
pointed in one direction. I could see all the trees leaning the same
way. It was so interesting. That experience helped reaffirm the
passion I had to be a meteorologist. My mom learned, when your
son says something is going on, pay attention! She’s listened ever
since.
NOW YOU’RE WARNING EVERYONE—NOT JUST
YOUR FAMILY. YOU CREATED WEATHERDEEP, A TOOL
THAT PREDICTS SEVERE WEATHER MANY WEEKS IN
ADVANCE. HOW DOES IT WORK?
WeatherDeep combines artificial intelligence (AI) with
atmospheric data to make predictions. This is a big technological
breakthrough—it’s unique. The AI learns how to forecast by looking
at weather data and figuring out which patterns mean there are
going to be tornadoes in a given region, and which mean there
A supercell
is also called won’t be any tornadoes in this region. WeatherDeep started out
a rotating with seasonal tornado forecasting but has expanded over time to
thunderstorm. include other types of storms.
________________
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO KNOW ABOUT SEVERE
WEATHER FURTHER IN ADVANCE?
It gives emergency managers, resource managers, and insurers
more time to prepare for storms.
________________
WHAT IS AN EXAMPLE OF A STORM WEATHERDEEP
PREDICTED?
The best example of a successful forecast was Hurricane Sally,
which hit southern Alabama in September 2020. WeatherDeep’s
models showed a possible landfall along the Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Alabama coastlines back in early August, giving WeatherDeep
users 30 to 40 days of lead time before impacts began. The storm
first threatened the New Orleans area before curving northeast and
striking the Mobile Bay, Alabama, area around September 16.
________________
IN THE FUTURE MIGHT PEOPLE USE A TOOL LIKE
THIS TO CHECK THE WEATHER BEFORE PLANNING A
VACATION?
In fact, I did that! I was planning a trip to the coast and looked at
my models first to see if there were potential issues where we were
headed. I didn’t see any, so I was like, “Let’s go!” It worked out.
________________
text © 2021 by Kathryn Hulick
HOW DO YOU HOPE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
INSPIRE OTHERS?
I want kids to know that they can do anything they put their mind
to. Follow your passion.
Kathryn Hulick explores the sometimes-surreal world of natural phenom-
ena in her book Strange But True (2019, Quarto).
23
ART SPACE KAREN ROMANO YOUNG
Did You Know?
This research
helps protect
whales from
ships, as part of
a program called
Whale Safe.
25
 l l y , an for
Fina ecially eir
p e sp ith th
ap one w in
any head ds!
clou
Hands-On

t h e

B Marilé Colón Robles

Stratus clouds are

CLOUD WATCHING FOR NASA flat and blanket the

sky stretching out
for long distances.
Cirrus clouds are
Try this citizen science app. feathery, thin clouds
that are up where
planes fly.
CLOUDS COME IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES. Some clouds are fluffy, some are
stretchy, and some are feathery. Clouds are named based on how they look
and how high they are in the sky.
Did you know that NASA studies clouds? Scientists use satellites to study
clouds. But satellites don’t always see the details we can see with our eyes. So
NASA asks people all around the world to help observe clouds.
Here is how you can help NASA.
First, ask an adult to help you download the GLOBE Observer* app. When
you are ready to make your observation using the app, be sure to follow your
local guidelines and be safe. And remember to never look directly at the sun!
To make your observation, select the “Clouds” portion of the app and
answer the questions one by one. If you aren’t sure about something,
remember that all it needs is your best answer. The app walks you through
each step of your clouds observation and even teaches you about the cloud
types. Next, the app will ask you if you want to take pictures of your sky. Your
photographs help scientists see what you see as if they were right there with
you.

26
When you match the circle
and letter on your screen,
the app will automatically
take a photo. The letters
are N, S, E and W for north,
south, east, and west.

Satellites also take images of

clouds every day. A team at NASA’s
Langley Research Center works to
match your observations to those
made by satellites. Scientists
match “top-down” views of clouds
(from a satellite) with “bottom-up”
views (from you and your fellow
citizen scientists). When these two
views are combined, NASA can
get a complete picture of the sky.
You can help NASA find a cumulus
cloud that was hiding under a big
stratus cloud!
Are you interested in making
other types of observations for
NASA? You can do more than
just observe clouds with GLOBE
Observer. You can help monitor
land cover change in your area.
Or how about tree heights? You
could even help stop the spread
of mosquito-borne diseases.
Simply follow the step-by-step
instructions within each part of
the app.

text © 2021 by Marilé Colón Robles

Marilé Colón Robles is the project
scientist for NASA GLOBE Clouds.
Hailing from San Juan, Puerto Rico,
Colón Robles studied chemistry and
then atmospheric sciences before
becoming a scientist for NASA. She
is also an accomplished musician,
an avid volleyball player, and the
mother to two beautiful girls.

* GLOBE Observer is a part of

the GLOBE Program. The GLOBE
Program is an Earth science
education program. It is also NASA’s
largest and longest-running citizen
science program.

27
 As
Cro
B
efore its launch in 2007, most
experts agreed the iPhone
was doomed. It wouldn’t sell.
It will “crash in flames,” “fail
badly,” and “fade into history,”
technology journalists wrote. Instead, like a
fastball through glass, the iPhone shattered
predictions and sailed on to become one of the
most successful products ever. In 2020, over
100 million Americans used an iPhone.

28
WHEN IT COMES
TO PREDICTIONS,
CROWDS CAN DO
EVEN BETTER
THAN EXPERTS.

29
 If you can’t trust an expert to make
a good prediction, who can you trust?
Try a crowd. Under the right
conditions, crowds can make better
predictions than the individuals in
them—a crowd can even beat a single
expert. Predictions are educated
guesses about the unknown. A cow, an
election, and a jar of jellybeans show
how crowds can get predictions right
and what goes wrong when they fail.
The Superpower
of Crowds
More than a hundred years ago,
the scientist Francis Galton visited
an English country fair. There, he
stumbled upon a contest to guess
the weight of an ox. Interested in
Crowds aren’t just lucky. Lots
of people with different bits of
information and ideas can make
crowds collectively smart.
30
math, Galton gathered 800
guesses and crunched the
numbers. Galton found,
to his surprise, that the
crowd’s guess (the average)
was just 1 pound off. Did
Galton happen to collect a
lot of lucky guesses?
David Kestenbaum and
Jacob Goldstein, reporters
for the Planet Money radio
show on NPR, wanted to find out. One
steamy summer day in 2015, the pair
visited the Burlington County Farm
Fair in New Jersey. Laughter bubbled
from carnival rides as they headed
for the dairy tent. There, Penelope,
a black and white cow, shining with
good health, greeted them. She was as
tall as Goldstein’s shoulder.
The reporters led the
bovine beauty onto a large,
flat truck scale. A curious
crowd had gathered, but
Kestenbaum and Goldstein
carefully guarded the scale’s
digital display. It flashed
1,355 pounds.
Later, far from the sweet
smell of warm hay, the pair
uploaded a photo of Penelope to the
Planet Money website. They invited
people to guess her weight, and more
than 17,000 people did. The crowd’s
guess was 1,287 pounds. That was just
5 percent less than Penelope’s true
weight. Impressive!
All kinds of people guessed. Some
called themselves cow experts. Others
robably couldn’t tell a cow from an
x. When Goldstein and Kestenbaum
alculated the guesses only from
he experts, the result wasn’t better.
Penelope
the cow

It was worse: 83 pounds off for the
experts compared to 68 pounds for
the whole crowd.
Crowds aren’t just lucky. Lots
of people with different bits of
information and ideas can make
crowds collectively smart. A crowd
will always make a prediction at least
as good as the typical person in it.
Often a crowd will do better. If people
in a crowd have reasonably good
information, they can make excellent
predictions. Some businesses,
financial markets, and internet
searches rely on this phenomenon.
Author James Surowiecki titled his
book about it The Wisdom of Crowds.
If you want to predict who’s going
to win the big game on Saturday, the
number of Girl Scout cookies your
troop will sell, or when school buses
will fly, ask a crowd of reasonably
knowledgeable people instead of a
single expert.
Just make sure the crowd has
people who know different things
and have different ways of thinking.
Without a diverse crowd, predictions
can go badly. The Chicago Tribune
newspaper learned that lesson the
hard way.
Diversity Makes
Crowds Powerful
It was election night, November 1948.
J. Loy Maloney, the Tribune editor, had
a deadline approaching fast. Dozens
SIX BLIND MEN AND AN ELEPHANT
Have you heard the old folktale of the six blind men and
the elephant? There are many versions of this tale. Here’s one
version that shows the power of combining different sources of
information:
Six blind men approach an elephant. They don’t know what an
elephant is, but they want to find out.
The first man feels the elephant’s side. “An elephant is broad
like a wall,” he says.
The second man touches the elephant’s tusk. He says, “An
elephant is smooth and pointy like a spear.”
The third man reaches out to the elephant’s trunk. “An
elephant is like a snake,” he says.
The fourth man feels the elephant’s sturdy foot. He says, “An
elephant is like a tree.”
The fifth man touches the elephant’s ear. He says, “The
elephant is bendable like a fan.”
The last man feels the elephant’s tail and says, “An elephant is
like a rope.”
Each man knows something about one part of the
elephant, but none knows about the other parts. If they share
their independent observations, they can come closer to
understanding the whole elephant. Similarly, if individuals in a
diverse crowd can combine their information, for example by
averaging, better predictions can result.
of hulking linotype printing machines no chance against Thomas Dewey.
sat cold. A typesetter’s strike made All the major election polls—
them useless. Without linotype, surveys that ask people about the
printing newspapers took a lot longer. candidates—predicted Dewey
Maloney couldn’t wait anymore. He would win. For weeks, headlines
had to ink tomorrow’s headline even had blared:
though votes were still being counted “Truman Fight Hopeless, Polls
in the presidential election. Should Imply.”
he take a chance and report a winner “Dewey Victory in November by
even though one hadn’t been named Wide Margin Predicted.”
yet? Maloney wasn’t sure. He phoned “Dewey as Good as Elected.”
his correspondent in Washington, Polls predicted a big Dewey
DC. They decided Harry Truman had victory. Maloney printed the
31
 newspaper with the headline:
“Dewey Defeats Truman.”
Big mistake. When the votes
were counted, they showed
Truman beat Dewey 50 percent
to 45 percent in the popular
vote. What happened? Aren’t
crowds, like the ones political
polls survey, supposed to be
great at predictions?
A few things went wrong. One
was the failure of pollsters to survey
a crowd as diverse as American
voters. Pollsters spoke more often
than expected to more highly
educated Americans. That wouldn’t
necessarily have mattered, but
Truman’s ideas appealed to just
the kinds of people the pollsters
missed. Election polls rely on
diverse crowds to make accurate
predictions. In this case, pollsters
hadn’t talked to a diverse crowd.
Election polls rely on
diverse crowds to make
accurate predictions.
32
As election night wore on, the
editor realized his mistake. After
printing the first 150,000 papers,
Maloney changed the headline.
Two days later, someone handed
Truman a paper with the original
headline. He held it up, and a
photographer snapped a shot.
The photo captured the Tribune’s
failure for the history books.
Crowds Need
Independent Voices
To be good at predictions, crowds
President Harry Truman holds up a newspaper
need diversity. They also need whose editor guessed wrong.
independent voices. Investor Joel
Greenblatt helps people make money
with their money. He used a jar of to write down a guess of how many
jellybeans and a pack of index cards jellybeans it held. Once Greenblatt
to prove a point about crowds with collected the cards, he calculated
independent thinking to a classroom the student’s average guess: 1,771
of ninth graders. Greenblatt showed jellybeans, nearly the same as the
the students the jar and asked them true number, 1,776. Some students
had guessed way too many, but
others had guessed way too few. They
balanced each other out. Just like
Galton, Kestenbaum, and Goldstein,
Greenblatt had shown the power
of crowds to make a prediction, an
educated guess, about the unknown
number of jellybeans.
Next, Greenblatt showed what can
go wrong. Before he revealed the true
b f j ll b t th t d t
time, they had to say their guess
out loud instead of writing it down.
The class’s average guess dropped to
850 jellybeans—less than half of the
actual total!
Why did the crowd’s prediction
get so much worse? The students
didn’t get dumber, but the crowd
did. As the students listened to each
other’s guesses, they adjusted their
own guess. No one wanted to seem
too different, but that made the
crowd less diverse. As the students
began to act more alike, the power
of the crowd decreased.
Test It Out:
Gather Predictions
Experts help us understand the
world better. But, when it comes to
predicting the unknown, asking one
expert isn’t always the best strategy.
Sometimes it’s hard to identify an
expert. Even then, an expert’s deep
knowledge can blind him or her
to new ways of thinking or diverse
sources of information.
In 2007, technology journalists
predicted the iPhone would fail
because of its high price and its
touchscreen. Experts warned that
consumers would not give up
buttons. Would a crowd that had
included kids and teens—who
often adapt more quickly to new
technology—have made a better
prediction? We don’t know, but it’s
certainly possible.
If you want to see the power of
crowds, try your own experiment.
Ask your classmates or friends and
neighbors to guess the number of
candies in a jar, the temperature of a
room, or the weight of your family’s
pet. Just make sure you get a diverse
crowd and ask them to write their
guess down instead of saying it
out loud. How close do they get to
the truth?
Jennifer Stephan spent many years
making predictions in business and
education. Now she writes nonfiction
for tweens and teens and, as predicted,
loves sharing math and social science
with others.
PREDICTING COOKIE SALES
Ms. Carter’s class is planting a school garden. The class will sell
cookies to raise money for flowers. Ms. Carter asks the students to
predict how many cookies they’ll sell:
Last year, May sold cookies for her Girl Scout troop. “No one
knows more about cookie sales than me!” she thinks. She
predicts they’ll sell 115 cookies.
Marcos predicts they’ll sell 160. “Who wouldn’t want a
cookie?” he thinks.
Connor has a gluten allergy. Without a gluten-free option, he
predicts they’ll sell just 80.
Fatima knows the kids on her volleyball team love cookies.
She predicts they’ll sell 140.
Lola saw a new bakery in town. She thinks the competition
might make it hard to sell cookies. She predicts they’ll sell
just 30.
The students actually sell 100 cookies.
Did May (the expert) or the group make a better prediction?
To find out, record the individual predictions in the table. Then
calculate the group’s prediction, the average of the individual
predictions. (Hint: sum the five predictions then divide by five.)
Next, calculate the absolute error for each prediction. It’s the
difference between the predicted and actual number of cookies
sold. Being 20 cookies over has the same absolute error as being
20 under. Record the errors below and then read on.
NAME PREDICTION ACTUAL=100 ABSOLUTE ERROR
May
Marcos
Connor
Fatima
Lola
Group
Which prediction had the lowest error?
The group’s absolute error, 5 cookies, is less than the errors for
May (15), Marcos (60), Connor (20), Fatima (40), and Lola (70). This
crowd made a better prediction than every individual in it. That
won’t always be true, but a crowd will be at least as accurate as
its average person.
The group’s diversity—with predictions above the true
value helping offset those below it—increases its accuracy. What
would happen if everyone thought like May and predicted 115
cookies sold?
Do the math, and you’ll see that without diversity, the group
does no better (or worse) than the individuals in it.
33
Hands-On

You’ll need
An old deck of playing cards
(brand-new cards are too slippery
and will not hold this pattern)
A friend or family member willing
to let you tell their fortune

by Kathryn Hulick TIP

Before you try to tell

HOW TO TELL someone’s fortune, practice

steps 5–7 several times

SOMEONE’S FORTUNE until you know how to

make the pattern.

All you need is a deck of cards!

FORTUNE TELLERS CLAIM THAT THEY CAN READ YOUR SECRETS IN ZODIAC SIGNS,
the lines on your palm, the numbers in your birthday, tarot cards, tea leaves, and so
much more. None of these things have any real influence on your life or your future.
They are all random patterns. Yet random patterns can lead to fortunes that feel very
real. What’s going on?
The real secret is that we humans are expert story tellers with active imaginations.
Here, let me tell your fortune: “Someone you care about is very excited about a new
project or hobby. They wish you would pay more attention to what they’re working on. If
you can find a way to participate in this project with them, they’ll be very happy.”
That fortune is vague enough to fit anyone. Most people who read it will quickly fill
in the details. (“This must be about the time my sister kept bugging me to play her new
video game!”) If you’re in the same room as a person while telling their fortune, you can
tweak the story to fit them even better. It isn’t the cards or any mysterious psychic force
providing the story. It’s the imaginations of the people involved.
This activity will reveal why fortune telling is just a fun game. Let’s try it!

34
Step 1. Take out all the face cards
from your deck. If the face cards
have two heads, use a pen to draw a
dot next to one head on each card.
You will use the dot to figure out
which way the face card is looking
when you lay out your fortune.
Step 2. Set aside the queen of
diamonds (or a face card of your
choice) to represent your volunteer.
Then shuffle the deck, fan it out
face down on a table, then ask
them to pick out twelve cards (no
peeking!). Invite them to pick the
cards they feel drawn to.
Step 3. Ask the volunteer to close
their eyes and shuffle the twelve
cards while thinking deeply about a
problem they are having. Then ask
them to give you the top five cards,
again without peeking.
Step 4. Add the queen of diamonds
to the stack of five. Shuffle while
telling the person that they chose
their cards well.
Step 5. Lay the top two cards face
down on a table like this.
Step 6. Lay the next two cards face
down on the sides, covering the
ends of the sideways card.
Step 7. Hold all these cards in
position with one hand. Use the
other hand to weave the next card
into position under the middle card
and over the two side cards. Repeat
on the other side. This step takes
practice! Don’t get frustrated if
the pattern falls apart the first few
times you try it. Just keep at it until
you get the hang of it.
Step 8. Carefully flip over the
woven cards, keeping the pattern
intact. If your cards are too slippery,
the weave will fall apart. An old,
worn deck of cards works best (and
seems more mystical to boot).
Step 9. Start to tell a story based
on the cards:
Hearts = love or friendship
Spades = trouble or problems
Clubs = luck or success
Diamonds = money or work
Numbers = the amount or
degree of something (2 of
hearts = like, while 10 of
hearts = true love)
Face cards = people. The dot
shows you the direction each
person faces. That tells you
what they know about or are
paying attention to.
Queen of diamonds (or whatever
card you chose) = your volunteer
There is no right or wrong way to tell
the story! Have fun and be creative
about how you interpret the cards.
Look back at the fortune at the
beginning of this activity. What
cards do you think might have
inspired that story?
Step 10. After you’ve practiced
telling fortunes this way for a while,
try flipping around the meanings.
THE REAL STORY
Psychologist Ray Hyman
learned to read palms as a
teenager. At first he was just
trying to make some extra
money. But he began to feel like
he had real talent because the
readings worked so well. Then
a friend challenged him to read
the opposite of what the lines
were supposed to say. To his
surprise, these readings worked
just as well! He said, “If you set
people up right, you can tell
them anything. If they’ve got a
creative and intelligent mind,
then no matter how crazy it
seems to be, they can find a way
of reinterpreting it so it really
fits them like a glove.”
As long as you and your
listener can work together to tell
a good story, it doesn’t matter
at all what meanings you give
to the different suits or what
arrangement of cards you end
up with. You and the volunteer
will find a way to tell a story that
feels like a real fortune.
Now, follow this formula:
Hearts = trouble or problems
Spades = love or friendship
Diamonds = luck or success
Clubs = money or work
Numbers = the opposite amounts
Face cards = people facing the
opposite direction
Do the fortunes still fit your
volunteer?
Step 11: Repeat the activity.
This time, instead of having your
volunteer shuffle and select cards
carefully, just shuffle quickly and pick
the top five to mix with the queen
of diamonds. Tell a fortune based on
these random cards.
text © 2021 by Kathryn Hulick
Do the fortunes still work?
Kathryn Hulick learned this form of
fortune telling in high school from an
exchange student who was from Spain.
Learn more about psychics and why
people believe in these powers in her
book, Strange But True (2019, Quarto).
35
 Residents of
Galveston, Texas,
had little warning
before a hurricane
leveled the town
in 1900.

36
L
et’s zoom in on Isaac Cline,
chief meteorologist in
Galveston, Texas, an island
town bordering the Gulf of
Mexico. The year is 1900. It’s
September. Hurricane season.

Watching and Waiting

On September 4th, Cline receives
a telegraph about a tropical storm
moving northward over Cuba from
her bureau’s Washington, DC
e. Would it hit Galveston?
What weather forecasting
ools does the meteorologist
have? He has the telegraph
nd a telephone for receiving
nd sending information. He which measure air pressure. A rapidly
h h rmometers, falling barometer would mean there
nemometer was a strong or fast-moving storm
measure nearby.
nd speed, and He watches the clouds and the sea.
nd vanes, for “Meteorologists then had to really
asuring wind keep their eyes on the sky to collect
tion. He has information,” says John Cangialosi, a
grometer to hurricane specialist at the National
easure moisture in the Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
r. He’s got a rain gauge. Meteorologist Steve DiRienzo adds,
e has barometers, “Cline would have seen the speed and
movement of the clouds and any large
sea swells well ahead of the storm.”
DiRienzo works for the National
Weather Service in Albany, New
York. As he well knows, to accurately
forecast hurricanes you have to see
beyond what is right in front of you.
On September 7th, at the beach on
the southern side of the island, Cline
sees large waves or swells. Hurricane

Forecasting tools
in 1900 (from
top): hygrometer,
barometer,
thermometer,
anemometer,
rain gauge, and
telegraph.

37

scientist Hugh Willoughby of Florida
International University explains,
“Cline would have realized exactly
what large swells meant. By 1900 the
dynamics of ocean surface waves
were well-understood, and Cline knew
that there was a hurricane in the Gulf
from telegraph reports. So when the
big swells started breaking, astute
observer that he was, he knew it
was close by.”
A Deadly Storm
That day, Cline orders a flag to be
flown on the roof of the building
where he works. It alerts the public
that a storm is coming.
The next morning, September 8th,
Cline’s backyard is flooded. Large
waves are crashing onto the shore.
The storm is getting worse. It’s
time to take cover.
At 6:30 PM, a huge wave sweeps
ashore. The Cline family house is torn
to pieces. The meteorologist and his
three daughters survive. But tragically,
his wife drowns. At least six thousand
other people in the community lose
their lives. Galveston suffers what
is still considered today one of the
nation’s most profound natural
disasters.
The Galveston hurricane was a
real catastrophe, for Isaac Cline and
the rest of his city. Hurricanes today
can still be deadly, but far less so.
If Cline had the forecasting tools of
today—such as weather balloons,
satellites, radar, planes, drones,
computers, research, models and
38
The hurricane tore
apart buildings
with powerful
wind and water.
computer data—Galveston would
have suffered far less. Willoughby
estimates if a storm like the one that
hit Galveston in 1900 would strike in
our century, very few people would
lose their lives.
Isaac Cline was a smart
meteorologist. But he didn’t have the
benefit of modern tools and systems
to track storms and save lives. Here
are some of the important steps
forward for meteorology over the
last century-plus.
Data and Networks
Cline lacked the right information,
or data, to help him predict
the Galveston hurricane. What
information he received wasn’t timely.
Observations did come from many
distant locations, but it often took
several hours for the information to
arrive. Since hurricanes can change
course in a few hours, late information
isn’t useful. He knew a hurricane was
out there, but he didn’t know which
direction it was going until it was
right on top of him.
Today, a global weather
information system feeds weather
reports to weather stations
continuously. Weather is monitored
and reported in real time from
stations all over the planet, from ships
at sea, weather balloons, aircrafts,
radars, and satellites. If you were a
forecaster in any weather office, you’d
know a hurricane was approaching
you well before it arrived in your city.
In the US, this network had only
just started to develop in Cline’s era.
Today, we have a weather service
with many stations throughout the
country. And we have the National
Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida,
established in 1955. Its main mission
is to track and forecast hurricanes.
Communications
Communication technology is a
crucial tool for a forecaster. Cline
received his messages by telephone
and telegraph—a technology
developed in the mid-1800s. Telegraph
messages were translated into Morse
code and sent along wires, letter
by letter.
Modern communications
systems send weather information
instantly using a variety of different
technologies: satellites, cell towers,
fiber optic lines, cables, and so on.
Weather information, such as when
a hurricane begins and where it’s
headed, is available within seconds.
Cline could only hang a flag to warn
citizens, but today people in an
affected area would see news reports
and weather alerts ahead of a major
storm. They may even get automatic
alerts on their cell phones.
Computer Models
Computers generate almost all of
today’s forecasts based on models, or
simulations of real-world situations.
They can create these simulations
thanks to vast amounts of past
measurements of real-world weather.
Cline had no computers to collect
and compute vast amounts of
Nowadays, me-
teorologists use
radar antennae to
track storms and
weather forma-
tions.
measurements. He could only measure
his local area’s wind, air pressure, and
air temperature. To forecast a hurricane
accurately you need more information
than that.
“Supercomputers take in large
amounts of observations from sea
buoys, weather balloons, ship reports,
and observation stations. They
input these values into a series of
mathematical equations to get a set
of initial conditions,” explains Ryan
Fucheck, a marine meteorologist and
operational forecaster with a private
forecasting company in Minnesota.
Then the computer program uses its
huge stockpile of data to predict how
the atmosphere will change in the next
few minutes. Based on those results,
it predicts the next few minutes after
that. That’s how computers arrive at
tomorrow’s weather forecast.
Cangialosi notes, “No model is
perfect. Still, what’s amazing is that
models are so much better today at
predicting hurricanes as compared to
what they were capable of just 20 or
30 years ago.”
Remote Sensing
Remote sensing lets us detect and
measure things at a distance from the
observing instrument. Satellites and
radar are the main types of remote
sensing tools used in forecasting.
These tools can detect qualities such
as temperature without directly
touching the area being measured.
Cangialosi explains, “Remote sensing
is a tremendous help in analyzing
hurricanes. Satellites, a type a remote
sensing, are like our eyes.”
How do they help us see? He
explains, “From hundreds of miles
above the Earth, they take pictures of
storms near the Earth’s surface. From
these pictures we can get a 3D look at
a storm. With satellites, Cline would’ve
known the storm was coming sooner.”
Radars are another example of
remote sensing. Radars operate both
on land and in the air, on research
aircrafts. “Radars,” says Cangialosi,
“give us a view through the clouds.”
Neal Dorst is a meteorologist who
researchers hurricanes. He says,
“If Cline had radar, he could have
tracked in real-time where the worst
parts of the storm were.”
Drones and Planes
Today the National Weather Service
has “hurricane hunter” planes that fly
into, around, and above hurricanes
that are still out at sea, where the
storms begin. They can drop a
measuring tool called a dropsonde
that transmits back information
about a storm. Forecasters then use
that info to predict hurricanes.
“Hurricanes spend most of
their time over open water,” Dorst
explains. Without weather stations
in the middle of the ocean, “the only
way to get direct measurements and
other meteorological information
about the storm itself is by flying
into it.”
Although now in the
experimental stage, drones
also gather information about
hurricanes. Says Dorst, “They
can investigate parts of the
storm where we can’t send out
crewed aircraft because it’s too
dangerous.”
Weather Research
In Cline’s day, meteorological
research about the weather was
just beginning. “We’ve made big
advances in the basic physical
understanding of hurricanes,”
says Willoughby.
Cline would not have fully
understood what made a hurricane
a hurricane. Where do they
start, what makes their winds go
faster or slower, or grow larger
or smaller? What influences the
direction they move in, how they
will affect shorelines, and more?
Lew Fincher, a hurricane historian
in Texas, says that in 1900 people
were just beginning to understand
the physics behind the weather.
Today, hurricanes still hold some
mysteries. But we know enough of
their secrets that forecasters can
now make reliable predictions—
text © 2021 by Peg Lopata
and thus prevent another deadly
calamity on the scale of what
happened in Galveston in 1900.
Peg Lopata is an avid weather watcher
and, so long as she’s in a safe place, loves
to take in a good thunderstorm.
39
Science@Work

by Peg Lopata

ROBYN HEFFERNAN
FIRE WEATHER METEOROLOGIST
Robyn Heffernan didn’t set out to be a meteorologist. She was a communications major in college, but she had
the opportunity to work with a meteorology professor. Says Heffernan, “This is where I discovered my love for
meteorology.” She is now a national fire weather science and dissemination meteorologist with the National
Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. It’s the nation’s headquarters for wildland fire.

40
 Meteorology is the perfect mix COULD YOU EXPLAIN FIRE WEATHER?
of science and public service.
— Robyn Heffernan
Fire weather describes types of weather that greatly impact fires.
In extreme cases, a fire can create its own weather from the heat
created by the fire.
________________

WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU DO?

I train forecasters to understand not only the weather, but also how
the weather impacts fire and how fire can impact the weather. I
also work with researchers to help apply new science discoveries
and technological advancements.
________________

DO YOU PREDICT WILDFIRES TOO?

Yes. Predicting where a wildfire will start is challenging—most
wildfires are caused by humans. We predict areas where lightning is
likely to occur and could start a fire. Most importantly, we highlight
areas that, because of weather and vegetation conditions, could
have extreme fire behavior if a fire were to start.
________________
An incident
meteorologist HOW DO YOU MAKE THOSE PREDICTIONS?
collects weather We make weather observations at the surface of the land and in the
data on the Pine
Gulch Fire. atmosphere. We measure moisture in the soil and the vegetation.
We use information about the atmosphere that comes from
weather balloons and satellites. We also use weather models.
WHY DID YOU WANT ________________
TO BE A SCIENTIST?
Being a scientist sounded LUCKILY, WILDFIRES AREN’T HAPPENING ALL
interesting to me, while many THE TIME. WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU AREN’T
other fields of study just WORKING ON WILDFIRE FORECASTING?
sounded like work. I’m learning from wildfire experiences and about new science
________________ and technology and figuring out how to apply what I learn. Then

WHAT ARE INCIDENT

METEOROLOGISTS?
Incident meteorologists, The 2020 Pine
IMETs for short, are specially Gulch Fire was the
largest wildfire in
trained forecasters that are Colorado history.
sent to work with firefighters. It was caused by a
Their forecasts help to fight lightning strike.
the fire and keep firefighters
and the public safe.
________________

YOU CHOSE TO
SPECIALIZE IN A
text © 2021 by Peg Lopata

BRANCH OF INCIDENT
METEOROLOGY, FIRE
WEATHER. WHY?
Fire weather is the
exciting aspect of incident
meteorology. Working in fire
weather has incredible job
satisfaction. I am working
directly to save lives.

41
Science@Work
I train all of the nation’s
fire weather forecasters
to use these new skills. I
never stop learning. It’s
the single most important
thing I can do to improve
what I do.
________________
BEING A WEATHER FORECASTER.
Meteorology is the perfect mix of science and public service. I love
that all the scientists and firefighters I work with are so incredibly
passionate about helping people. It’s why we do this—to save lives.
Peg Lopata is excited to learn about how scientists can help with fire
season.

WHAT ARE YOU

WORKING ON RIGHT
NOW?
I am working with fire
analysts on a new model
that assesses and predicts
fire danger levels. These
levels on signs will tell
you the fire danger in
wildlands, national
forests, and other places.
________________
YOUR WORK
SOUNDS REALLY
INTERESTING.
WHAT DO YOU
FEEL HAS BEEN
YOUR GREATEST
ACCOMPLISHMENT
SO FAR?
I’ve brought a stress
management program
to the National Weather
Service. This program
helps forecasters with
the difficult emotional
aspects of their job.
Forecasters see, first-
hand, the devastation
from weather and wildfire
disasters, so this program
teaches them skills to
address the emotional
trauma that can come
with the job. It helps them
stay resilient so that they
can continue to help
others. It’s very important
to me that our forecasters
are taken care of.
________________
HOW INCIDENT METEOROLOGISTS
HELP FIGHT WILDFIRES
Within the field of meteorology there are some weather
forecasters called “incident meteorologists.” They are
forecasters who understand how the weather affects
wildfires and vice-versa. They study and predict fire weather.
Incident meteorologists work with a team of people who are
suppressing, controlling, or managing a wildfire. Sometimes
they help manage a controlled burn, a practice that to keeps
forests healthy.
Incident meteorologists do many different kinds of tasks.
They produce important information, such as fire weather
forecasts, which are predictions of when and where wildfires
may happen. They also help firefighters during a wildfire.
“Incident meteorologists bring a weather kit with them to a
fire incident to take measurements onsite,” explains Robyn
Heffernan. “They can also use large, automated weather
stations placed around the fire for continuous monitoring of
conditions. These onsite measurements combined with weather
models, satellite, and radar are all used to help understand wind
flow and direction of the fire movement.”
This type of meteorologist also monitors conditions such as
moisture levels in grasses, brush, and trees over a long period of
time. “In wildland fires, this vegetation is called ‘fuel,’” explains
Heffernan. “We measure fuel moisture by weighing the fuel
and then drying it in an oven and then weighing it again. Fuel
moisture is expressed as a percentage of the overall weight.” A
long dry spell can create lots of fuel, which could make it easier
for a wildfire to begin and spread.

CARING FOR OTHERS

. . . HMMM . . . DIDN’T
REALIZE THAT WAS
SUCH A BIG PART OF

42
 BY EMILY CAMBIAS

Q:
Why is it harder
to sleep in
different places
than where you
normally sleep?
—Brandon H.

Your family drove ten

A hours to your aunt’s

: house, and you’re
ready to collapse on
the cot in the guest
room and get some sleep. But
even though you’re so tired, sleep
just doesn’t come. You toss and
turn all night—first too hot, then
too cold. And finally, when you do
drift off, you jerk back awake just
an hour later. It’s so easy to sleep
in your own bed. So why can’t you
nod off here?
Brain scientist Martha Hotz
Vitaterna, deputy director at
Northwestern University’s Center
for Sleep & Circadian Biology,
knows all about this problem.
“In some sleep research circles,
this is referred to as the ‘first
night effect,’” she says. “People do
not sleep well the first night in
a sleep laboratory. There is less
slow brainwave activity, meaning
not as much time in deep sleep.
In animal studies, we see this
phenomenon as well.”
The fact that this occurs
in other animals, too, makes
scientists think that weird sleep
in new beds is the result of a very
old process inside your brain.
It may date back to long before
humans evolved. When you curl
up in your own bed, your brain
knows it’s home. It can relax and
fall into a deep, healthy sleep,
secure in knowing that you’ll
be safe all night long. But
when you’re dozing off in an
unfamiliar place, your brain
stays slightly attentive to make
sure no dangers are nearby—
predators or other things that
animals sleeping the wild would
have to worry about. Sounds
or sensations that you might
understand are perfectly safe
(like a bubbling radiator, or your
sister snoring) still set off that
worried half. What’s that? Is it
dangerous? It wakes up the rest
of the brain to keep you alert
and ready to escape if you need
to. And the more you wake up,
the harder it becomes to relax
and slip into a deeper sleep.
“It’s kind of a bad cycle,”
Vitaterna says. “You keep
waking up, which keeps you in
lighter stages of sleep, which
makes it more likely that some-
thing will wake you up . . .”
But there’s good news: for
most people, after just one or
two nights in a new place, our
anxious brains start to feel safe
and secure again. And finally
we can drift off to a full night of
sleep. In a way, it’s nice to know
that our brains are looking out
for the rest of us—even if it
means that a good night’s sleep
is just a dream for now.
—Emily
Have any questions?
Send them to Muse Q&A,
1 East Erie Street, Suite 525,
PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611,
or email them to
muse@cricketmedia.com.

43
 Can CATS Predict
EARTHQUAKES?
ARE ANIMALS’ POWERS TO FORETELL NATURAL
DISASTERS FACT OR FOLKLORE?
O
by Diana Lynn, illustrations by Tim Oliphant
ur planet quakes thousands of times a
year, but we still can’t predict exactly when
and where earthquakes will strike. What if
animals’ odd behavior could warn us?
Ancient Greeks told a story about how
mice, weasels, snakes, and centipedes ran off days before a
terrible earthquake. And people still claim that animals act
weird before earthquakes hit. Dogs keep on barking. Cows
stop making milk. Toads jump out of ponds. From 2009 to
2012, scientists videoed ants living in an active earthquake
area. They found the ants were more active at night instead
of during the day in the hours before an earthquake.
Researchers have reviewed hundreds of reports like this,
but most were just anecdotes—single observations that
cannot be tested or repeated.
44
Where’s the Proof?
San Francisco geologist Jim Berkland predicted quakes
based on scientific factors, like the moon’s gravitational
pull. But he also counted newspaper ads looking for
runaway cats and dogs. On October 13, 1989, he told a
newspaper reporter a big quake would strike there in the
next week. Four days later, the Loma Prieta mega-quake hit!
It crumbled freeway overpasses and knocked over blocks
of buildings. But the scientific community still rejected
Berkland’s theory about pets. He didn’t document every
prediction, so nobody could measure his accuracy rate.
Berkland’s successful prediction could have just been a
coincidence. Actual scientific evidence has to be repeatable.
And a connection between a cause (an impending
earthquake) and an effect (runaway dogs and cats) has to be
shown to be stronger than random chance through careful
experimentation and data collection. But how do you set up
an experiment when you don’t know exactly when or where an
earthquake will hit? California researchers lucked out in the
1970s. They had built controlled habitats to monitor the wheel-
running activity of pocket mice and kangaroo rats. These
habitats happened to be in an active earthquake area. Then the
1971 San Fernando earthquake struck nearby. The researchers
checked their data and found no big changes in how long the
animals ran in their wheels or stayed underground before the
earthquake activity. What might the next experiment show?
What do you call a cow
during an earthquake?
LET’S ASK A CAT
New Technology
Excuse me, Researchers from 150 universities worldwide are working
Ms. JenniFurr on a new study called the ICARUS Project. The project
. . . Do you tracks many small animal species such as birds, bats, and
know when an turtles for the purpose of scientific research. One group of
earthquake’s researchers is looking for possible connections between
going to animal behavior and earthquakes. If they find a reliable
happen? connection, this could save hundreds of thousands of
human lives. ICARUS aims to power an app that will give
people hours to get to safety.
Tracking many different kinds of animals may be the
key, since each animal species species may respond to the
Mee-how tremors that lead up to earthquakes in its own way. ICARUS
would I do has already tagged more than 10,000 animals in quake-
that? prone places around the world.
Martin Wikelski, project director at the Max Planck
Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, is hopeful. He
monitored farm animals in Italy that showed higher levels
of activity in the hours ahead of an earthquake. The closer
those animals were to the quake’s center, the earlier their
Lots of people behavior changed! The collective behavior of animals may
say cats and help people predict earthquakes. “It’s a huge claim, so we’d
other animals
better have good proof for it,” he told the New York Times.
can just tell.
Scientists Disagree
Not everyone shares his optimism.
Earthquake expert John Vidale likes the idea behind
Hmph (yawn). ICARUS but doesn’t have high hopes. “Anything’s possible,”
If that happens, he told NBC News, “[but] we’ve never had a case where the
I’ll grab my purrr- instruments showed something, the animals picked it up,
ple purrr-se, then
and it was coming before an earthquake.”
run and hide. Now
Er . . . purrr-don mee-ow,
Geologist Wendy Bohon studies earthquakes. She told
thanks it’s time for today’s Scientific American that ICARUS is doing some “cool things,”
anyway, Ms. 139th nap. but she knows animal behavior is hard to pin down. “My cat
JenniFurr. could act crazy before an earthquake,” she says. “But my cat
text © 2021 by Diana Lynn

also acts crazy if somebody uses the can opener.”

If cats could talk, what secrets could they share about
early warning signs of earthquakes? (Or would they just ask
us what flavor of cat food we’re opening up?)

Diana Lynn lives in earthquake country, so she keeps a close eye on her
big black dog, Marshmallow, who’s afraid of earthquakes and spiders.

45
 CONTEST

NEW CONTEST
—GISELLE L.K. / age 12 / Oregon
Magic Eight Paul
Have you ever asked a certain
spherical toy a question and waited
for the mysterious blue triangle to
answer? We can’t vouch for the
accuracy of Magic 8-Ball advice or
fortunes, but we do predict some
creative responses to this issue’s
contest! Please send us a very short
story (200 words or fewer) that
includes the words magic, eight,
and Paul in whatever order and
arrangement you choose. Will we
enjoy reading your micro-stories?
It is decidedly so. ANNOUNCING
CONTEST WINNERS!
CONTEST RULES Games ruled in the February 2021
1. Your contest entry must be your
very own original work. Ideas and
issue. We asked you to go the extra
words should not be copied. mile by combining two favorite
sports in the best possible way.
2. Be sure to include your name,
age, and full address on your entry. Congrats to these creative mash-up
3. Only one entry per person,
please.
4. If you want your work returned,
enclose a self-addressed, stamped
envelope.
5. All entries must be signed by a
parent or legal guardian, saying
that this is your own work and
no help was given and granting P. / age 13 /
New York
permission to publish. For detailed
information about our compliance
with the Children’s Online Privacy
Protection Act, visit the policy page
at cricketmedia.com/privacy.
6. Your entry must be received by
August 31, 2021. We will publish
winning entries in the January 2022
issue of Muse.
7. Send entries to Muse Contest,
1 East Erie Street, Suite 525, on
/ Washingt
PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611 or via C. / age 9
—SYLAS
email to muse@cricketmedia.com.
If entering a digital photo
or scan, please send at 300 dpi.

ANSWERS RUNNERS-UP
Honorable Mention
PAGES 6—9 MUSE NEWS This month’s runners-
The false story is “Talk to the up are Jasper K., age 11,
Connecticut; Maia A.,
Adeline P., age 9,
Alabama, and Olivia M.,
age 10, Ohio.

46
 BY KATHRYN HULICK MATTHEW BILLINGTON
Your Tech

il
t Ma
cke
Ro

5 TOTALLY TERRIBLE the face of the Earth, because flour

TECHNOLOGY
and meal will no longer be grown,
but made,” he said. While we still

PREDICTIONS rely on farms for food, scientists

have figured out how to make
meat from plants or grow it from
CAN YOU DO BETTER? WHAT TECH DO YOU EXPECT IN 2050?
cells.

#1: Rocket mail #5: Virtual reality everywhere

In 1959, the US Postmaster General, Arthur Summerfield, In 1999, the futurist Ray Kurzweil
predicted that guided missiles would become the usual predicted that by 2019, we’d wear
method for delivering mail before a human reached the lenses or glasses that project
moon. We have email now, but still no rocket mail. virtual images onto the real
world. He also thought the glasses
#2: Nuclear vacuums might display a complete virtual
In 1955, Alex Lewyt, the president of a vacuum cleaner reality that we could touch and
company, predicted that within 10 years nuclear power would interact with. Virtual reality (VR)
run vacuums. What did he think people would do with the technology isn’t nearly this good
radioactive waste? yet. To be fair, Kurzweil correctly
predicted that AI would beat
#3: Ape workers humans at chess and that we’d
Who needs robots when you could have monkeys? Glenn switch to digital books and music
T. Seaborg, a Nobel prize–winning chemist, predicted in and movies. So maybe realistic VR
1951 that by 2020, we’d breed apes that could drive cars and is just around the corner?
perform other tasks for us.
Kathryn Hulick’s new book, Welcome
#4: Meals in a pill to the Future (October 2021, Quarto)
In 1894, the chemist Marcellin Berthelot predicted that predicts that the people of the future
people of the future would get all the nutrition they needed in will connect their brains to computers,
pill form. “Wheat fields and corn fields are to disappear from 3D-print replacement organs, and more.
47
 BY NANCY KANGAS
Last Slice

HI! I’M A CLOUD!! primatologists and entomologists

THE EDITORS OF MUSE ASKED IF I COULD WRITE A FEW and ichthyologists (heavens, the
WORDS ABOUT GEOENGINEERING, and I said, A few WORDS?? list goes on and on), people who are
Are you kidding?! I could write a few BOOKS!! Geoengineers* into geoengineering—that is to say,
are so clever, so “with it”—I mean, they truly understand how geoengineers—want to know about
interesting I am. You know? CLOUDS. Geoengineers want to
A lot of people don’t realize that I’m trying for some pretty cool know about how I shield the Earth
stuff up here. I mean, yeah, sometimes I do an elephant or giraffe, with my mass of tiny, shiny frozen
but most of the time I’m way beyond that. Like yesterday? I was droplets. They talk about filling the
morphing from pancake spatula to Mount Rushmore to a frieze sky with clouds and more clouds!
of the final scene from Phantom of the Opera. In basically one And I say, good CHOICE, guys!
minute. I know!! AWEsome. Love,
So. Geoengineering. Also quite awesome! Why? Well, unlike A Cloud

48 * They’re like geniuses who plan BIG changes to Earth’s natural systems as a way of counteracting climate change. Or is that genii? I can never remember!
 Photos Shutterstock.com

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to Beat the Summer Heat!
v Programs for all levels, from beginner to advanced v
v 1:1 instruction for kids ages 5–16 v
v Highly qualified and enthusiastic teachers make lessons fun! v
Visit CricketMedia.com/NeuLingo to learn more.
 July/August 2021 Volume 25 Number 06 cricketmedia.com $6.95

Sometimes
being out
there in the
inflow of
the storm is
electrifying!