It Has to Be Someone's Foot, Right?

How tall are you? About 4 feet or so?

Well, whose feet? Four of your feet? Four of my feet? Four chicken feet?

If we zip back in time a few hundred years, you would actually be able to answer that. Because feet used to belong to people.

Ok, that was silly. Of course feet belonged to people or cats or dogs or what have you. What I meant to say is that the measurement "a foot" was someone's actual foot.

That's one important foot. And who would have such an important foot? The king of course.

So, let's say it is 1776. You would be about 4 of King George III's feet tall. Unless of course you lived in France. Then you would be 4 King Louis XVI's feet tall. And how big were his feet?

I'll show you.

This is a ruler. Correction...this is the ruler. This brass bar was the exact length of King Louis XVI's foot. This meant people could make copies of this ruler and measure things exactly. Which is nice. Or at least certainly better than dragging the King of France around everywhere and holding his foot up to measure things. I'm sure the King would agree.

There is one problem with this system though. Every time you got a new Ruler you had to get a new ruler. Meaning if the king changed then the foot changed. And a foot in one country was never the same as a foot in another country.

It was all terribly confusing.

Then in 1799 the French had an idea! Why don't we measure the distance from the north pole to the equator, divide that number by 10 million and call it a meter!?

Great idea France. (Actually, America and England had very similar ideas and maybe even better ones, but the French idea is the one that stuck).

And here is that very first meter. The one, the only, the official meter of France (and most of the world now too). If you had 9,999,999 more platinum bars to go with this one you could put them end-t0-end and stretch them from the cold north pole all the way to the sweaty equator.

Now, this meter sits in a museum, because they kept coming up with fancier and fancier ways to measure a meter, so this one is no longer the official meter. Now a meter is how far light travels in a vacuum in one two-hundred ninety-nine million, seven-hundred ninety-two thousand, four-hundred fifty-eighth of a second.

Like I said, fancy.

And it wasn't just length the French decided to clear up in 1799. They tackled weight too. This is the first official kilogram. I nice change from the pound which used to be equal to the weight of 7,000 barley seeds. Not 6,999 tiny barley seeds. Not 7,001 tiny barley seeds. But exactly 7,000 tiny barley seeds. Count carefully.

Thank goodness we have the metric system now.

*Bonus Question: If the pound still equaled 7,000 barley seeds, how many barley seeds would you weigh?

♬♬♬ I Love You...You Love Me...We are One Big Happy Parasitic Family ♬♬♬

I have been in France for a few weeks now and have been enjoying many of the Paris sites.

And, as it turns out, the parasites have been enjoying me as well.

Sorry, that was a horribly bad joke, but I hope you got the point...I have been attacked by parasites!

That is a bit dramatic. The parasites didn't really attack, but they did certainly move in. And not only did they moved in. They had babies!

A few nights ago, I stepped on something hard on the bathroom floor. At least it felt hard. There actually wasn't anything on the floor. There was something in my foot though. I looked at the bottom of my foot and there was a big round bump with a hard black dot inside. I thought it was probably just an old splinter.

I got a pair of toenail clippers to cut it open and remove the splinter. When I did, I was in for a big surprise. There was no splinter, but there were lots and lots of eggs!

Tiny, tiny white eggs and plus some puss and blood and other gooey icky things. It didn't really hurt, but it was a bit weird. There shouldn't be eggs in my foot. Where did they come from? Who did they come from?

Well, I still don't know. I did my best to get rid of all the eggs. None of them hatched, so I didn't get to see what they would turn into. They are most likely some sort of parasitic worm. A bit like the caterpillar and wasp story a few posts ago.

Creepy, I know. Some worms like to live in humans. Sometimes they crawl into your feet and sometimes they get into your body some other way like sneaking in with a mosquito. They live in the mosquito and when the mosquito bites you it rushes out of the mosquito's mouth and into your blood. When it is older and is ready to have babies, it wriggles its way under your skin or through your blood until it reaches the bottom of your foot. It lays eggs. The eggs hatch and leave your foot for better places.

But every parasitic worm is different. Some live and grow inside of you until you become very sick or even die. Some live inside of you and don't hurt you at all. And some live inside of you and actually help you. Yeah, thank you parasites!

Parasites are all over, in and through you. Right now there is an army of billions and trillions of bacteria, worms, viruses and mites that calls you home.

Don't freak out. It's not really a bad thing. If they all took a vacation it would be bad though. You would get very sick. Your body needs that tiny army to keep it healthy.

In America, most people don't get the really bad parasites. The nasty parasites like to move from person to person in dirty water and disgusting mud. Where you live, you drink clean water, you wash your clothes and bodies in fresh water, and you go to the bathroom in sparkling bright little rooms.

In Madagascar, and other very poor countries, people don't have clean water to drink and wash with. And there aren't bathrooms like yours. This means that the nasty parasites are happy and healthy, but the people sometimes are not.

My parasites didn't seem to be too bad. My foot feels fine now and all seems to be good.

So, when you go to sleep tonight, don't forget to tell your trillions of tiny friends thanks for keeping you nice and healthy. And they will thank you for being such a nice warm home.

*If you want a fancy science word for two living things helping each other out, you're in luck. It's called mutualism.

Three of the tiny, tiny eggs. You would need about 8 to make 1 grain of rice.

This is one of the bad parasites. It is found mostly in Africa and it is passed along from unclean drinking water. To remove it you have to slowly wrap it around a stick until it comes out. Be patient. It might take a while; the worm can be 3 feet long! [Photo from www.fiveoclockbot.com]

This is one of the worst parasites. It causes Lymphatic filariasis. About 12o million people in about 80 different countries suffer from the parasite. [Photo from NY Times]

Madagascar Morning Meeting: Three's a Charm

Greeting:

Bonjour (they speak French here too, not just Malagasy). Thanks for joining me for another Madagascar Morning Meeting. The rainy season is starting on the island, so most afternoons we get a little sprinkle and the temperature is warming up too. I bet it is not warming up in New Jersey is it? It's cooling down. Different ends of the world; different seasons.

Well, enough of me greeting you. It's time for you to greet each other. This time we will do a Malagasy Taxi Greeting. Our city, Antananarivo, is a loud place. There are lots of old and beat up cars, lots of squealing scooters and lots of roaring motorcycles. And everyone likes to honk their horns.

So, one person goes first. Turn to a neighbor, tap on her shoulder and give a "honk." That person will give a "honk" back and then pass the tap and the "honk" on to her neighbor. After you "honk" your neighbor, keep "honking" to yourself. It should end up nice and loud, but that is a bit of what our city is like just with a lot of smoke and smog too.

If you want an extra challenge, try this:

When the first person, who should still be "honking," gets tapped on the shoulder by the last person, she should stop honking and pass the shoulder tap on to the next person. Stop honking after you have had your shoulder tapped that second time. If it works, it should get quieter and quieter until everyone has been tapped again and all is quiet.

Activity:

Here's a simply one for all you budding primatologists (scientists who study monkeys and the like). Divide the class into two teams for the game. Then click on the link below to face off against each other in a lemur quiz. Good luck.

Click to Take Lemur Quiz

Sharing:

Scroll on down the page to find a post that tickles your fancy. The post just below this one is a sad, sad little story about the wonderfully weird life of parasitic wasps. Ask your teacher to use her best over-the-top read aloud voice. I recommend that post, but feel free to try something else too. If you want to make Mr. Lebo very happy, ask your teacher to please leave a comment after you read.

Try saying to her, "Just think how sad Mr. Lebo will be if we don't leave a comment, Mrs. [your teacher's name]. He will be like a tiny sad wet puppy with no bone to chew."

Just click on the word "comment" at the bottom of the post and away you go. Don't forget to say who you are.

Goodbye:

Thank you so much for stopping by. I wish I could be there to see you in person, but New Jersey is very, very far away Madagascar. But guess what! It won't be for long. Well, not quite. I guess Madagascar will still be very, very far away, but I won't be. In December, I will be flying on over to say hello and visit. We can have a Morning Meeting in person.

There will be special movie night on December 4th for us to watch Madagascar the movie and then learn a bit about the real Madagascar. The all the next week, I will be back at school to teach again in the science lab. And the week after that I will be back on a plane for the 9,000 mile trip back to the Red Island.

I can't wait to see you all.

Take care.

Too Late for Caterpillar: A Creepy Science Bedtime Children's Tale

Caterpillar was a good larva. 

She loved to eat. 

She loved to eat. 

And she loved to eat. 

All that eating made her a nice and plumpy larva. And everyone loved Caterpillar. 

At night, Caterpillar dreamed wonderful little caterpillar dreams. She chewed her way through big plates of tasty green salad. She crunched a big munchy apple until there was nothing left but the tiny tippy tip of the stem.

And she dreamed too of one day soon curling up for a long, long nap inside of a cozy chrysalis. And of one day popping out as a beautiful, beautiful butterfly!

But Caterpillar wasn't the only one who dreamed. 

Flying and buzzing and darting around the garden was Wasp. Wasp liked to dream to. She dreamed of a warm safe place for her cute, cuddly wasp babies to call home.

But where could her adorable baby wasps live? 

Wasp was not good at building houses. And Wasp was very old. Wasp would not be buzzing and darting around much longer.

But her eggs! Her eggs need a home. They would hatch and their cold striped waspy bodies would need warmth and their tiny empty waspy bellies would need food. Wasp began to worry.

But then she saw Caterpillar

Warm, juicy Caterpillar. 

Uh oh, Caterpillar! Run Caterpillar run!

But Caterpillar could not run. She could only wiggle and wrinkle slowly along.

Poor Caterpillar. 

"Ouch," said Caterpillar. She felt a ting and a sting on her soft green back. 

Wasp laid her innocent little eggs.

Then Wasp whirled away into the blue, blue sky. She was sleepy. And soon Wasp laid her old and tired antennae down. She took a little breath, slept and never flew again.

Awwwwwww.

But her eggs would fly some day. 

The eggs were happy and toasty in their caterpillar-back beds. But you can't be a wasp egg for ever. 

Soon they wriggled out into the fresh clean air, their lovely larval heads happy to finally see the world. 

"Brrrrr! We are cold," they sang in their sharp larvaly voices. "And, oh, how are bellies rumble!"

"What can we eat?" they pleaded. 

"Pizza!" one little wasp replied.

"Don't be silly. There is no pizza here on this warm, juicy and delicious caterpillar," another little wasp snapped.

Still a third larva called out, "The warm, juicy and delicious caterpillar! We are standing on food. We were born on food. Mom laid us on a big globby mess of food!"

"Thank you, Mom," the little chorus sang.

All but one, whose tiny compound eyes filled with tiny compound tears at the thought of the dear and thoughtful mother they had never known.

Now Caterpillar did not like this idea one bit.

"I am not food!" she shouted. "Shoo you nasty waspies!"

But, sadly, wasps don't speak Caterpillar, so they did not understand a word. And they slurped and supped for days until their bellies nearly burst.

Then something weird started to happen. Big white hairs started to appear here and there and nearly everywhere. The hairs were coming from them and the hairs were warm. Soon the larva grew sleepy in their cozy sweaters. 

Then they too dreamed. They dreamed of flitting and flying in the breeze. And of one day laying their own eggs on their own juicy caterpillars and their hungry babies thanking them for a nice home and a wonderful supper.

The hairs kept growing and growing and soon the Caterpillar was lost in a big puffy cloud of sleeping pupas dreaming their precious waspy dreams. 

Caterpillar did not care for this at all, but Caterpillar was cold and tired and could not do anything but sleep and sleep until she could sleep no more.

Awwwwwww.

Then one day, there was a wiggle and jiggle and a turn and toss. And soon there emerged a small baby wasp. 

Then another and another. 

They dried their wings and whizzed away. 

The wide sky now their home and the once juicy caterpillar far, far below.

The End