Stan C. Smith's Blog

Someone once asked why I go to so much trouble to answer such weird questions. To paraphrase George Carlin… The reason I answer these questions myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept. :)

Okay, think about this. There are plenty of green birds, green reptiles, green amphibians, green fish, green insects… why aren’t there any green mammals? Wait… the Grinch is green. Is the Grinch a mammal? Honestly, I don’t know what he (or she?) is supposed to be. Anyway, the Grinch is fictional, so we still have no green mammals. There may be some mammal species humans haven’t discovered yet, but it’s fair to assume none of them will be green, based on the approximately 6,640 mammal species known so far that are not green.

The closest we have to a green mammal is the two-toed and the three-toed sloths. Their fur sometimes appears to be green. But this isn’t part of the sloth’s natural pigmentation. Instead, sloths have a symbiotic relationship with green algae. The sloths provide the algae with a nice place to live, in the special grooves of their hairs where there is moisture. In return, the algae makes the sloth’s fur appear green, which serves as camouflage, protecting the sloth from predators (such as the massive harpy eagle, which loves to eat sloths).

Okay, so besides the fictional grinch, and besides sloths that look green but are not really green, why are there no green mammals?

The color of skin and hair in mammals is determined by two forms of melanin (pigment). Eumelanin varies from dark brown to black. Pheomelanin varies from yellow to red. Various combinations of these allow mammals to have colors ranging from white (no pigmentation at all) to black (dense quantities of eumelanin), with all ranges of brown and blond in between.

However, it’s also important to understand that not all animal coloration is produced by melanin. Many animals have what is called structural coloration. Basically, this is a repeating structure at the microscopic level causing light to reflect a certain color. This is how most butterfly wings get their colors. And how some bird’s feathers get their colors. For example, a scarlet macaw doesn’t really have red feathers… but the feathers have a structure that interacts with light in such a way that only red light is reflected. And most birds that are green do not actually have green pigment, but instead they have structural features that reflect green light. This begs the question… if mammals don’t have any green pigment, couldn’t they evolve green structural coloration? Possibly. But, this fact also suggests that most mammals are better off with shades of brown. Even those mammals that climb trees a lot, like squirrels, are often seen against the tree bark rather than out at the tips of limbs surrounded only by green leaves.

So, maybe part of our answer to this question is that few mammals actually need to be green.

Below is a three-toed sloth in Costa Rica that has green algae living in its fur.

Photo Credits:
- Green sloth - Marimar Ortiz, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Trish recently spotted this spectacular pillbug (FIRST IMAGE) and held it for me to take a photo. Not only was this individual extra large, it also had an unusual pattern of yellow markings I hadn't seen before. Most of the ones I've seen are just slate gray in color.

First, let's sort out what the heck a pillbug is. You might know them as roly-polies (because they roll into a protective ball when disturbed or dehydrated). They are often called isopods, because they are in the order Isopoda. Other names include pill woodlouse, potato bug, slater, and doodle bug.

This color pattern got me curious, so I went down a Google rabbit hole and discovered that genetic color variations are fairly common in this species, Armadillidium vulgare, the common pillbug. In fact, some people keep them as pets, selectively breeding them for these yellow color patterns.

By the way... back in the years when I taught 7th-grade science, I developed a research study with my students, in which we formed partnerships with other middle school classes around the United States. Each partner class collected pillbugs, and we conducted various behavior experiments to measure their preferences for temperature, moisture, light, and other environmental factors. Then I had all the partner schools exchange results to see how these pillbug behaviors vary in different parts of the country. It was a really cool project.

For the culminating activity, I had students from all schools collaboratively write a multi-chapter sci-fi story featuring a sentient, time-traveling pillbug named Armadillia. I kid you not.

The students from the various schools even drew illustrations for the story, and we created a book. The SECOND IMAGE is an example illustration. That's Armadillia with his portable time machine. Unfortunately, I can't give credit to the 7th grader who drew this picture because I don't remember who it was.

My fascination with isopods shows up again in the Bridgers series. In "Bridgers 4: The Mind of Many," I populate a bizarre world with 2,000-pound isopods. These gentle giants, each the size of a hippopotamus, roam the wilderness in herds, feeding on moss (THIRD IMAGE).

If you haven't read the Bridgers series, you're in for a treat. Check it out (https://www.amazon.com/Bridgers-Serie...).

Photo Credits:
Giant pillbugs in forest - Midjourney
Other photos - Stan C. Smith

I had an interesting encounter a few days ago. While I was exploring the forest near our home, I spotted a three-toed box turtle steadily (and noisily) making its way through the dead leaves of the forest floor toward me. I've always liked box turtles, so I just waited silently to see how close it would get before realizing it was walking toward a giant alien-like being.

Well, the turtle didn't stop. Keeping its head turned slightly to its left, I saw that this turtle's right eye was missing. Unaware of my presence, it walked up to within inches of my feet. Then it turned its head, revealing an intact, functional left eye. It froze and stared.

And it stared, and stared. This staring match continued until I could no longer take the judgmental scrutiny. So I spoke to the turtle... something like, "What happened to your eye, little dude?" Yes, I talk to forest creatures on a regular basis—don't judge.

Instead of replying, the turtle finally turned and headed away. That's when I saw that its tail was just a little nub. I concluded that this turtle had been in a close encounter with a predator, probably years ago based on the appearance of the scars. It's a survivor. Respect.

Several unmistakable signs that spring is definitely here. These are things I saw in a recent hike in the forest.

First, a prairie ring-necked snake (PHOTO ONE). These harmless snakes are common, and I usually find them hiding under flat rocks. Although you can barely see it in this photo, they have a distinct orange ring around their neck. These tiny snakes specialize in eating earthworms and slugs—yum! Notice the gray or milky eye? This tells me the snake is getting ready to shed its skin.

Next, I found this five-lined skink sunning itself on a fallen log (PHOTO TWO). These lizards prey on just about any small animal they can catch, including insects, spiders, snails, and smaller lizards. They are incredibly fast, so sometimes you only catch a glimpse of one as it runs under the dead leaves to hide. The youngsters have bright blue tails.

Next, numerous wildflowers are blooming in the forest, and the insects are out and about in abundance. PHOTO THREE is a carpenter bee feeding on flowers of a plant I'm pretty sure is dwarf larkspur. Carpenter bees are large, like bumblebees, but they are not aggressive at all. They do, however, like to chew perfectly round holes in the wood of our porch to make their nests.

And finally (PHOTO FOUR), I only found this one single morel mushroom (morels were the reason I went on this hike in the first place). In Missouri (and other places), these mushrooms are legendary for their wonderful taste and their elusiveness. In April, morel hunters take to the woods in droves, trying to find these treasures. Some people are luckier (or more skilled) than others. As I said, I found only one. However, a few days prior, our son Ryan went out searching and found more than 300. These mushrooms only grow for a few weeks, so timing is everything.

I saw this question posted on FB, but no answer was provided. Well, I'm not afraid to tackle the big questions, so let's dig into this.

“I need my beauty sleep.” I’ve heard this phrase uttered countless times, though I’ve never really understood it. The phrase dates back to the early 1800s. Its first use might have been when it appeared in Charles White’s 1828 book, "Herbert Milton." During that time, people widely believed that any sleep you got before midnight would enhance your health and beauty. Hmm… sounds to me like a way to get people to stop staying up so late. As for me, I am almost always asleep well before midnight… but I don’t think it has helped my beauty much.

But why before midnight? Did people believe that, if you stayed awake until 12:01 AM, the sleep you got afterwards didn’t do you any good? That’s silly, so I’m going to file the whole midnight thing under “folklore.” Today, the phrase “beauty sleep” is usually used in a humorous way to refer to any good night’s sleep. Even so, the whole idea that sleep can enhance your health, appearance, and state of mind has persisted to this day. Is there any scientific basis to this? Does sleep really make us look better?

Let’s examine what happens during a typical 7 to 8 hours of sleep. During the first three hours or so, your body starts producing a growth hormone called somatotropin, produced by the pituitary gland. As we get older, this hormone actually does help maintain youthful, healthy-looking skin. Without somatotropin, our skin cannot repair the damage that occurred during our waking hours. This of course would lead to physical signs of aging.

Starting at about four or five hours into your sleep, your body begins producing melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate your sleep/wake pattern. It also acts as an antioxidant that helps protect your skin.

Also, during the final three hours, your body goes into your REM stage of sleep. This is when your body’s stress hormone (cortisol) decreases. Your skin drops to its lowest temperature of the night, and your muscles relax, which allows your skin to have its deepest recovery of the entire night. If your alarm wakes you up in the middle of your REM sleep, this reduces these benefits.

When you don’t get enough sleep, your body interprets this as stress, and stress has all kinds of effects, including more acne and drier skin, not to mention puffy eyes and that general sleep-deprived face we all experience at times.

There you go… there really is a scientific basis for the old saying. So, be sure to get your nightly beauty sleep.

Photo credit:
- Sleeping dog - DepositPhotos

Trish and I took one of our grandsons to Planet Comicon in Kansas City, where my inner nerd got overstimulated by all the amazing artists, authors, gadgets, and celebrities. We even attended a presentation by William Shatner. Grandson did not know who Shatner was, but he knew all the voice actors of an animated show called Hazbin Hotel, and he got to meet two of them... I had never even heard of the show. So, we learned from him, and he learned from us.

I don't wear costumes (an activity called cosplay), but I love seeing all the amazing costumes people have made. Many people take it very seriously and spend thousands of dollars on their costumes. I was so impressed with this Predator costume that I had to pose for a selfie with this guy (FIRST PHOTO).

So now I'm in the mood to talk about predators in general. Predators play a major role in many, if not all, of my novels. Some of my predators are rather fantastical, like the giant wingless birds in "Bridgers 1: The Lure of Infinity" or the flesh-eating eclipse bugs in "Primal Eclipse". Others, though, are real predators, like the extinct giant monitor lizard called Megalania in "Fused: Training Day" or the crocodiles in "Infusion".

Let's talk about a fantastical predator and then a real predator.

I like creating fantastical creatures because I can let my imagination go wild. One of my favorites is the monstrous eight-foot-tall anglerbeast. This creature makes several dramatic appearances in "Bridgers 4: The Mind of Many" (SECOND PHOTO).

Notice the glowing orbs at the end of each of the anglerbeast's antennae? This predator will approach a large framework mound (hill-sized mounds that are common on the world featured in this book) and will insert the orbs into the mound's dark interior. The strange light of the orbs will hypnotize cat-sized skitterbugs living inside the mound, and the skitterbugs will follow the lights up and out of the mound. As you can probably guess, the predatory anglerbeast then snatches the hypnotized skitterbugs in its powerful mandibles and feasts on them.

I suppose I got the idea for the anglerbeast from anglerfish, which are real fish that attract their prey with a single glowing orb dangling in front of their mouth.

Okay, now let's consider one of my favorite real predators in my novels—the cave hyena (THIRD PHOTO). Cave hyenas have a particularly intense attack scene in "Obsolete Theorem".

Cave hyenas were actually one of the most abundant apex predators throughout Eurasia, including Spain where "Obsolete Theorem" takes place 47,000 years in the past. Cave hyenas went extinct about 20,000 years ago, and it's possible humans played a role in their extinction.

Like the modern-day spotted hyena, cave hyenas probably hunted in packs. How do we know? Because cave hyenas preyed mostly on large mammals like wild horse, steppe bison, and aurochs (aurochs were massive bovine mammals thought to be the wild ancestors of modern cattle). Killing mammals as big as these would require cooperative hunting, even for the large cave hyenas.

Cave hyenas weighed close to 200 pounds (91 kg), which would make them about 60% larger than spotted hyenas, the largest hyenas living today (spotted hyenas are sometimes called laughing hyenas).

Imagine being an early human or a Neanderthal 50,000 years ago, armed only with a stone-tipped spear, and being attacked by a pack of 200-pound cave hyenas. That would ruin your day real quick.

Photo Credits:
- Anglerbeast and cave hyena - Midjourney
- Comicon photo - Grandson Brennan

It's late March, and things are warming up here. After seeing very few invertebrates during the winter months, Trish and I were on a hike a few days ago, and she spotted what may be the largest centipede we have found in Missouri. It was about 3 inches (7.6 cm) long and seemed to be on the prowl, roaming around looking for prey (FIRST PHOTO).

FYI—centipedes and millipedes are very different. Each group makes up its own Class, which means they are as different from each other as a human is from a fish, or from a snake.

Centipedes, with one pair of legs per body segment, are fast-moving predators. Millipedes, with two pairs of legs per body segment, are slow-moving grazers. If a millipede is like a gentle brontosaur, a centipede is a vicious T-rex.

Near the head (the business end) of a centipede is a modified pair of legs (called forcipules) that act as fangs, injecting venom that quickly paralyzes prey. In fact, a "giant centipede" (those in the genus Scolopendra) that weighs only 3g can immobilize a 45g mouse in less than 30 seconds. Most smaller centipedes, of course, eat small invertebrates, but "giant centipedes" can prey on lizards, snakes, rodents, birds, and even bats.

The centipede we found on our hike (the first photo) is not considered a "giant centipede." However, for many years, Trish and I have regularly hiked the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas, where we often find the tiger centipede (Scolopendra polymorpha). This beast grows to SEVEN inches (18cm) long. The SECOND PHOTO is a tiger centipede we found in 2011.

I have to tell you a brief story. Back when we were both biology teachers, we captured the largest tiger centipede we could find so that we could show it to our students. We put it in a plastic butter tub, and when we got home, we decided to transfer the creature to a larger container. This did not go well. The centipede made a wild lunge at the stick I was using to coax it from one container to the next. This startled me, and I dropped the butter tub. The centipede took off across the living room floor and disappeared down a crack next to the stairs.

It was under the floorboards of the house—the house where we lived, slept, and routinely walked around without shoes. We never saw the centipede again, but we found it somewhat more difficult to relax for several weeks after the centipede incident.

By the way, the tiger centipede is not particularly dangerous to humans, but a bite would be extremely painful. Other species of giant centipedes can be more dangerous. One of the largest of the giant centipedes, the Amazonian giant centipede, grows to 12 inches (30cm) long.

Okay, one more morsel of information to satisfy your burning curiosity. Giant centipedes are not considered as food for humans in many cultures. But in some countries, including China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, they are sometimes eaten grilled or deep-fat fried and are usually served on skewers, like you see in this the THIRD PHOTO.

Oh... and one more thing: the giant centipede was actually my inspiration for the venomcrook, a nasty living weapon wielded by an alien creature in Bridgers 3: The Voice of Reason. Trust me... you don't want to get hit with a venomcrook. FOURTH PHOTO.

Photo Credits:
- Missouri centipede and tiger centipede from Kansas - Stan C. Smith
- Centipede snacks - DepositPhotos
- Bridgers 3 cover - created for me by Jake at JCalebDesign

The first time Trish and I visited Queensland, Australia, we were on a long hike around a huge park in Cairns, and I looked up to see dozens of huge birds flying into the park. These things had broad wings than spanned well over a meter. Then I realized they weren’t birds at all—they were bats. To be more specific, they were flying foxes (FIRST PHOTO). Needless to say, I was jumping up and down in my excitement.

Anyway, hundreds of them flew into a city park and roosted in the trees for the night. I was so enthralled with these creatures that I have included rather monstrous versions of huge bats in two of my novels, Profusion and Hostile Emergence. Those creatures are kind of scary, but real flying foxes are remarkably… well, cute.

Flying foxes are in the group of bats called fruit bats (mostly in the genus, Pteropus). Take a look at the face of just about any flying fox and you'll understand how they got their name. They have very fox-like faces.

There are about 60 species of flying foxes, and they are widely spread throughout the subtropics of Asia, Australia, East Africa, and many islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. One thing that distinguishes flying foxes from other bats is that they eat fruit, pollen, nectar, or flowers. This means they have to live in areas that have flowers and fruit to eat year-round (tropical). Also, these bats do not have echolocation (sonar) to help them catch insects. Instead, they have very well-develop eyesight and smell. Like many other bats, they hang upside down (SECOND PHOTO).

Of course, flying foxes are the largest bats in the world. Some have a wingspan of five feet (1.5 meter)!

Some flying fox species are rare, partly because they are simply not very prolific. In fact, the large flying fox (yes, that’s its name) usually has only one pup (I love that they're called pups), and that's after a gestation period of 180 days! And then it takes 3-4 months for the pup to be weaned, and it won't be sexually mature for about two years.

And… flying foxes mate while they are hanging upside down. This seems awkward. And I guess I could add that the males often have a penis that is one-fourth the length of his entire body. So, are you starting to see the logistical problems involved here?

Flying foxes hang out (literally) in trees in massive groups called camps. Sometimes these camps can have several hundred thousand bats. But this isn't nearly as many as they used to have before their numbers were depleted. In the 1930s, there were camps that were four miles wide and had 30 million flying foxes.
(PHOTO THREE).

Photo credits:
Flying fox #1 - DepositPhotos 
Flying Fox #2 - hanging - DepositPhotos
Flying foxes #3 - group - DepositPhotos

I just finished writing a time travel story, titled The Sorcerer, and so this stuff is on my mind. Let's talk about two problems with logic regarding time travel.

First, let's dismiss the idea of time travel to the FUTURE. We can already travel to the future. For example, every time you are unconscious, you awake in the future having experienced no passage of time. Also, if you get in a spaceship and travel really fast (like half the speed of light), or if you go near a black hole where there is extraordinarily intense gravity, we know that time passes more slowly for you than for people on Earth. Depending on your speed or the intensity of the gravity, you could leave Earth for what seems like only one year to you, but when you return home, hundreds of years have passed on Earth. This method isn't practical, but it is a proven, observable fact resulting from Einstein's theory of relativity.

Even more interesting conundrums come in when we think about traveling to the PAST. Of course, we have no practical concept of ever being able to travel to the past. Probably won't ever happen. However, in the spirit of die-hard sci-fi fans, let's say it IS possible. There are two issues that most time travel stories struggle with.

Issue #1: if jumping back in time is possible, a new timeline has to be created at the moment any person or object arrives in the past. By "new timeline," I mean a new universe. Yes, jumping back in time requires the existence of infinite parallel universes (and there are at least five plausible scientific theories that suggest the existence of multiple universes, including the concept of “daughter universes” suggested by the theory of quantum mechanics).

Why does a new timeline (universe) have to be created upon the arrival of any person or object from the future? Because that arrival changes the events that are happening in the past. Let's say I have a time machine, and I send an iPhone (or a rock, or a hamster, or a person) back in time 100 years. The moment that iPhone appears, it triggers a sequence of events that are different from the other sequence of events that happened in those 100 years.

But that original 100-year series of events has already happened. It's impossible to undo something that has already happened (the disappearing photograph in "Back to the Future" is silly for this reason).

So, the appearance of the object in the past has to create a new timeline (a new universe). Anything can happen in the new timeline. Even if no one ever finds the iPhone in the past, random events will make it so that different events happen in the next 100 years in that timeline.

This is also why, if you could jump to the past, you could never get back to your own place in your original timeline... because the moment you arrive in the past, you are in a new universe. Even if you live another 100 years, you will not end up in the same place you started from. Jumping to the past is basically a one-way trip.

Issue #2:Jumping back in time (or forward, for that matter) is really space travel. Almost all time travel stories ignore this obvious fact. The Earth is moving... really fast. Even if we only consider the Earth's rotation, you are moving at 465 meters per second (1,037 miles per hour) at the equator (a bit slower if you are not at the equator). But remember, the Earth is also orbiting the sun, the solar system is spinning with the entire Milky Way galaxy, and the galaxy is hurtling through space as the entire universe expands. If we only consider our solar system moving in a huge orbit around the center of the galaxy, you are moving at 230 kilometers per second (514,000 miles per hour). Seriously.

So, if I have a time machine and I instantly jump back in time one second, I will appear at least 230 kilometers from where I started, probably somewhere deep in the Earth's crust (ouch) or somewhere beyond the Earth's atmosphere (ouch again). If I jump back in time 100 years, I'll appear 450.6 billion miles from where I started.

See the problem here?

A time machine has to be capable of transporting you across vast expanses of space and placing you at your destination with mind-boggling precision.

Pretty cool stuff, huh?

Image credit:
Clock in the stars - Midjourney

We’ve all felt it, right? You sit in a position that causes extra pressure to your leg or arm. After a while, you lose feeling in that area. Then, when you move your extremity to relieve the pressure, you start to feel the “pin pricks.” What’s up with that?

First, the feeling is called paresthesia, and you may be surprised to learn it isn’t caused by blood circulation (a common misunderstanding). Instead, it’s caused by compressing the nerves for too long. Here’s how it works…

If you put excess pressure on an extremity, the nerves in that area stop transmitting signals to the brain. For a while, the nerves try to transmit signals, but when they don’t receive any feedback, they simply stop trying. Because those nerves are no longer sending signals to your brain, you perceive the area to be numb. Or you think, "My arm fell asleep." It’s somewhat disturbing because you experience difficulty using those muscles for a while, even to the point where you might fall down if your foot is asleep.

When the pressure on the nerves ends, the nerves can sense this, and they initiate a series of tests. They send out signals to all the neurons down the line, to make sure they are still there and are alive. The neurons respond with a jolt of pain… their way of saying, “Yes, I’m still here!” After thirty seconds to two minutes, our brain realizes everything is well, and it shuts off this firing pattern so it can resume its normal operations. You can usually speed up the recovery process by shaking or rubbing your arm or leg.

I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day because that means it’s going to be up all night.

Photo Credits:
- Man experiencing paresthesia in the hand - DepositPhotos