OBJECT #7: Hercules Beetle

  
This isn’t a real Hercules beetle, but it’s almost as big as a real one.  It measures almost a foot (30 cm) in length.  It’s a model that my younger daughter made for a contest that the Penn State Entomology Department sponsors every fall.  They hold a huge Insect Fair and one event is the Build-A-Bug contest.  One year our homeschool group incorporated this contest into our insect unit and helped each student build a bug.  My daughter chose the Hercules beetle (maybe partly because she knew how fond I am of beetles).  The basic shape was made from cardboard and wire then covered with paper mache.  Then a heavy coat of paint and shiny coat of varnish.

    The most poignant lesson my daughter learned at the bug festival that year wasn’t about insects, but about people. The contest turned out to be juried by the all the spectators who came through the bug contest room, so the more family and friends a contestant had, the better their chance of winning.   Sure, there were some entries that were so good that they got votes no matter what, but overall, the contest was quite a bit skewed toward those who had brought along a huge fan club.  We were just us, total of three votes.  I looked a my daughter, shrugged, and said, “Oh well, life’s just like that sometimes.  You did a really nice job on your project and I’m proud of your work.  I’m going to hang it on the wall in my studio.”  So I did  and it’s been there  for... hmm... can it be seven years already?  Wow.

    Speaking of beetles, our house has been invaded by the one of the newest arrivals to North America-- a beetle that falls into the genre of “stink bug” or “squash bug.” (Entomologists call these particular invaders “brown marmorated stink bugs.”)  I think technically it may be a “shield bug,” which is actually a “true bug.”   (Beetles aren’t really “bugs.”  Only certain kinds of bugs are technically “bugs.”  Beetles are coleoptera and "bugs" are hemiptera.)

    Anyway, about once or twice a month, we find one of these little critters crawling up a curtain or buzzing about a light.  They are easy to catch and very harmless (unless you are a plant) so we just pick them up and put them outside.  We’ve found them in the house all the way through the winter months, so we know they are not just crawling in through a crack somewhere.  They must have wintered over in the house.  But we can’t discover where they are hiding out.  We’ve looked everywhere that seems likely for a bug to hide out.  But they just appear seemingly out of nowhere.

    My son read a research article online that gave us some info on these bugs, It seems these bugs are new arrivals from Asia.  They appeared in North America only about a decade ago and probably have spread from the east coast.  They have crept their way west and now, as I can witness, are colonizing central Pennsylvania.  They eat most plants, including those found in gardens and commercial farms.  Entomologists at various universities are studying them to find out if there is a safe way to get rid of them but as of yet have not come up with anything.

    We didn’t take the “stink” part of the name too seriously until on evening my daughter called me into her room to try to track down a strange smell.  It didn’t fit into any of our usual categories of smells.  We knew it was not a dead mouse or stinking cat litter or spilled paint.  Hours later my daughter suddenly remembered that she had found one of those bugs, crushed it with a tissue, and put it into her trash can. 

    My son also read in that article a scary story about a house that was infested with hundreds of these bugs, and as fast as the owners killed them, they were replaced by new ones.  The sorcerer’s little apprentices. (They did finally reduce the population down to a manageable level somehow.) 

    Well, at least I’m not phobic about bugs, and the good news is that they don’t bite or sting.

OBJECT #6: T2 virus

    If you’ve never read about bacteriophages, I doubt you would ever be able to guess what this thing is.  This is a paper model of a virus.  When you think of viruses, usually what comes to mind is sneezing and coughing.  It’s easy to forget that viruses don’t just affect humans.  There are many types viruses, each one specialized to attack one particular part of one particular type of living cell.  The first virus ever discovered was in plants.  There are also viruses that attack bacteria.  These types of viruses are called bacteriophages (“phage” means “eat” in Greek).  This type of bacteriophages is known as the T2.  There are also T4s and T6s.  The T2 is my favorite “phage” and is the one most common one drawn by artists who are illustrating articles on these things.  The reason for this is pretty obvious-- they look bizarre.  Usually people say they look like a lunar landing module.

    This model is just made from paper (heavy card stock paper) and a few chenille stems.  (It’s one of my free downloads, so you can make one, too!)  I sprayed the top lightly with silver spray paint to try to make it look less like paper.   In a real T2, the top part is made of protein and has a piece of DNA inside it.  The legs are not called legs, but rather “tail fibers.”  The ends of these fibers are what grabs onto the outside of the bacteria cell.  After it latches on, the neck sort of retracts, pulling the head down and propelling the DNA into the cell.  Once in the cell, the DNA takes over the cell machinery and turns the poor bacteria into a T2-producing factory.  When the bacteria gets full of T2s, it bursts open and all those new T2s go out looking for more bacteria cells to infect.

    Sounds gruesome (and even more so when you think that the same process happens to our cells when we catch a virus) but we could use these phages to our advantage to fight unwanted bacteria in our bodies.  The phage cannot possibly attack your cells.  The tail fibers will only stick to certain bacteria.  They won’t stick to your cells.  So... why are we not using these things to fight infections?  Some countries are-- such as Georgia (the country in Asia, not the US state).  They’ve got quite a research program going on these things.  They’ve found that these viruses are able to keep up with the survival mutations of the bacteria.  Antibiotic resistance is a big problem when dealing with bacteria.  But the T2 can manage to counter these mutations with mutations of their own, constantly keeping their mode of attack up to date.  Whenever the research hospital in Georgia finds an antibiotic resistant bacteria, all they need to do is take a microbial culture from the hospital’s sewer pipes and they’ll find phages that have already learned how to attack this new resistant strain.  So why aren’t other countries pursuing this research?  My guesses are that most people would say “No” to any treatment that involved a virus, and, more importantly, I don’t think you can get a patent on them, which rules them out as a cash cow for pharmaceutical companies.  But it’s nice to know that there is a Plan B out there, when all the drugs stop working.

    A number of years ago, I made a very large T2 for a science fair I did with my homeschool group.  I don’t know why I do things like this.  One day I just got it into my head that I needed a huge T2 virus.  I can’t brag that the construction was anything to “write home” about.  The top was just cardboard covered with sequined fabric.  The legs (oops--tail fibers) were hard to assemble because of the angles in involved.  I used metal angles that I adjust to less than 90 degrees.  The legs could be unscrewed for storage, and poor T2 spent many months in storage, only coming out for special events now and then.  The last time I got it out I discovered that it had become very wobbly, and making the determination that rebuilding was easier that repair, I decided to retire the T2 from my collection of junk in the garage.  (But I have not made a replacement yet.  Space is getting tight in the garage.)  I decided a better replacement was a hands-on activity about phages, where kids could assemble and disassemble T2s.  I made dozens of little cardboard heads, plastic DNAs, wooden necks and chenille stem legs.  When the kids finish assembling the T2s, they go around to the other side and take them apart.  Kids think taking them apart is just as fun as putting them together, because there are little slots to stick all the parts into.  Kids love sticking things into holes and slots.  This exhibit is part of my traveling summer science museum.

OBJECT #5: A land planarian

    I have a very boring-looking terrarium sitting in my basement workshop.  It’s looks like it has nothing in it but some dirt, stones, leaves, and chunks of bark.  However, hidden under some of the rocks are some very bizarre creatures.  Last fall, during our “Simple Invertebrates” unit, I brought in some containers of dirt from my garden to use for a scavenger hunt.  The kids were given magnifiers and were told to find as many forms of life as they could.  Of course, they all found earthworms (some of them almost microscopic-- it is easy to forget that worms start out very, very small!), little gray “pill bugs” (or “rolly-pollies,” or whatever those little armadillo-like arthropods are called in your region of the world), and a selection of tiny millepedes, centipedes, spiders and insects. 

    Then one student found something amazing (and a bit alarming, as it turned out).  She called me over to looked at a strange worm she had found.  As soon as I saw it I was pretty sure it was not in the same family as the earthworm.  Its body was not segmented.  It was also too large to be a round worm.  As I watched it under our stereo-microscopes, I saw it extended its head far enough that the shape of the head became visible.  It was flat!  The head was round and flat, like a plate. I suspected that we had found a land planarium.

    As soon as I got home from my class, I began searching the web for pictures that matched what we had found.  It was definitely a land planarian, a terrestrial “cousin” of the famous freshwater planarian that regenerates body parts.  Cut a planarian’s head off and it will grow a new one.  Split its head down the middle and it will grow two heads.  Cut it lengthwise and each half will grow into a complete animal.  Planarians are very handy in biology labs that study tissue regeneration.  (You can get them from science supply companies like Carolina Biological. I had ordered some for this unit and the kids had a great time watching them slither around their jars.  I highly recommend them.) But this planarian lived on land, not in the water.

    I read some articles on land planarians and learned that what I had found was a recent invasive species.  These planarians are not native to North America.  They most likely had come over from Indo-China, hitching a ride on tropical greenhouse plants that had been shipped over.  Before they got to America, they had been discovered invading England.  They were first found in greenhouses at Kew Gardens in 1878, thus their scientific name, Biplaium kewense, and their nickname, the “Kew worm.”  They have been in America since 1901, but have stayed mainly in greenhouses.  But now they are on the loose.  Maybe mine came from potted plants I had bought from greenhouses and planted in my garden.

    I began looking around my property to see if I could find another of these rare flatworms.  To my surprise I found lots of them hiding under rocks or bricks in soil that was very damp.  Land planarians “breathe” by absorbing oxygen through their skin and they must have a layer of moisture around them to do this. Very wet clay seemed to suit them perfectly. 

    More research revealed that land planarians eat earthworms.  They’ve been known to tackle earthworms that are larger than they are.  And unfortunately, land planarians don’t till the soil.  They don’t harm the soil, but they don’t benefit it, either.   If the population of land planarians begins to increase and the population of earthworms begins to decrease, we could see the health of our soil declining.  So basically these weird little things are invaders we don’t want in our gardens.  Great-- I’ve probably got hundreds of them already.  My excitement about my discovery was gradually turning to horror.  These things should not be in my garden.  But how to get ride of them?  Researchers are still working on this problem.

    I found a website that tracks where these critters are showing up. They have been found in quite a few US states, but not all of them.  Apparently they have some really huge ones out in CA.  I prefer the tiny PA ones.

    I’ve lived in Pennsylvania most of my life and I’ve never seen one of these.  I guess I just got lucky on one of my trips to purchase to a greenhouse to buy plants.  Some people win the lottery.  I got land planarians.

Here’s one of the articles I read:
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/land_planarians.htm

(The close-up picture of the planarians was taken with my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8 camera.)

OBJECT #4: My TARDIS

    How many of you have a TARDIS in your basement?  Okay, how many of you know what a TARDIS is?  My UK readers are laughing right now.  Shocking but true, a surprising small percentage of Americans know what a TARDIS is.

    TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.  Time Lords use these things to zip in and out of time and space, meddling in the affairs of other planets and galaxies.  Only.. there’s just one Time Lord left, and we don’t know his real name.  We just know him as Dr. Who.  He’s Britain’s only superhero.  Dr. Who is as popular in Britain as Harry Potter is in the US.

    I’m not a hardcore “Whovian” because I haven’t seen ALL the old episodes from the 1960s, 70s and 80s.  PBS would run them late at night, and on the weekends, so I didn’t get to see very many of them.  The first time I got to watch the show with any consistency was when my two oldest children were very small.  It was a special treat to watch an “adult” show (funny how in America it was young adults who watched it, not kids) after the kids were in bed.  But I never made it to the end of a show.  I would inevitably doze off as the plot thickened.  My brain would then incorporate the sounds of the show into my dreams and I would be off chasing aliens half the night.

    I’ll never forget watching the first episode of the new-and-improved Dr. Who (written by Russel T. Davies) in 2005.  I was stunned.  The show had been completely regenerated into something that a body could never fall asleep in front of.  By this time I had kids old enough to watch along with me and we were all addicted by the end of the first episode.

    At first it was very hard to acquire the episodes.  The show had not caught on yet here in America and the only way we could get it was to rely on copied CDs that a friend very kindly burned for us.  When the next CD was dropped into our hands, we revered it as gold.  We’d make a big family night of it, with popcorn and soda and snacks.  Then somehow the parties started to grow with friends dropping in.  (And fortunately we found a way to torrent the episodes.) By the time we got to season 4, we’d have up to about 18 people at our gatherings.  And the menu grew, too.  Now, Dr. Who nights often involve full dinners.

    Then one day last summer, I decided we needed a TARDIS at our gatherings.  It had to be thin so it would fit against the wall as a decoration and could be stored easily in the garage.  But it also had to look 3D enough not to look like a large poster.  So I gathered some wood scraps, bought a few more, and started cutting and gluing.  The feature I am most proud of is the light fixture at the top.  I used a plastic peanut butter jar, a lid from a sports water bottle and a mayonnaise jar lid.  I cut them in half (lengthwise, so the fixture is flat on the back) and used epoxy to glue them together. I installed a nightlight bulb inside so the light really works.

    I think I painted this thing blue about 10 times.  I had purchased several shades of blue acrylic paint and did lots of experimental mixes.  Then I’d compare my results to photographs of the TARDIS.  I was somewhat relieved to discover, after a bit of Internet research, that the exact shade of the TARDIS had changed of the years.  So I couldn’t be all that wrong no matter what shade I used.  But I wanted my shade to be not-too-bright, not-too-dull, not-too-purple, not-too-gray.  After the final coat of paint I added a coat of matte finish so that the paint would be protected but without making the surface too shiny.  Shiny surfaces make photography difficult and I knew that one of the primary purpose of this prop was to provide a backdrop for some fun photos.  The final touch was the installation of some speakers in the back so it can make the famous TARDIS landing noise.

    I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to London a few years ago right when there was a big Dr. Who exhibition going on.  We got to see the original props used for the show (but not the TARDIS).  However, they didn’t need a TARDIS at the exhibition, as where was a permanent one on the street not too far from the convention center.  I wonder how many London natives have given directions to visitors using this TARDIS as a landmark?  It does stand out a bit!

OBJECT #3: Replica skulls

    I’m not quite sure why I have a skull collection on the mantle in my basement workshop.  I’ve never been a collector of any sort (although I do remember collecting those “Wacky Cards” when I was a kid-- the ones that came with bubble gum and featured silly ads for funny (parody) products such as “Vomit Cleanser” and “Swiss Mess” hot chocolate packets).  (Okay, I did keep all my baby teeth in a little plastic case, but wasn’t throwing them out at the end of that silly Tooth Fairy charade a bit of a waste?)  And though I admire naturalists who have vast collections from nature, I’ve never really thought of myself as one.   Sure, I had a fetal pig in a jar as part of my bedroom decor when I was about 12, but I had normal things, too, like Star Trek posters on the wall and stuffed animals on my bed.


    I think my adventures with skulls began when I started teaching art.  I was looking for interesting shapes that my students could draw using only a monochrome pallet (no color).  I wanted objects that were odd enough that the students wouldn’t be overly concerned about getting it to look “just right.”   I think I saw these replica skulls in a surplus catalog (probably American Science and Surplus) and thought the price was low enough that I didn’t have much to lose if they turned out to be a disappointment.  When they arrived I was quite delighted with them and they’ve been a standard still life item in my art classes every since.  They are made of tough resin, and are therefore practically indestructible, but are so lifelike that my students often don’t realize they aren’t real.  I’ve got a coyote, a cougar, an ape, and a small monkey.  I would have purchased more, but those were the only skulls listed.  That’s surplus for you.

    My favorite assignment is to have the students draw the skulls using black and white conte pencils on gray paper.  I’ve found that this is assignment almost always produces nice drawings, even with beginning students.  I’ve also had them try white pencil on black paper, and this works pretty well, too.

    I’ve always had in the back of my mind that I would use these skulls somehow as part of a hands-on exhibit in my summer science museum project (a free hands-on science museum at various outdoor venues in my town).   I have a few other skulls I could use, too, as well as a picture book I came across, “The Skull Alphabet Book” by Jerry Pallota.  This book is the most kid-friendly skull book I’ve ever seen.  It was a “must-purchase” for me.  The whimsical sense of humor is so right down my alley, and I love the simple and striking (artistic) compositions on each page.   It’s a brilliant combination of science, humor and artwork.  (I don’t understand why the author felt compelled to hide the faces of US presidents in the pictures, but, oh well.)   The first page sets the tone: Warning-- this book contains the alphabet. If you are afraid of the alphabet, do not read any further,”  What a clever way to get the focus of the skulls being scary!  After reading, “A is for... we are not going to tell you!” I was sold.  It’s an engaging book that makes you think while you are reading.  Some day I will think of a way to combine this book with my skull collection and make a fun hands-on exhibit.   Until then, I guess both my collection and the book are... “junk in my basement.”  

OBJECT #2: Twisty toys

    I picked up these twisty toys at a yard sale a few years ago.  Since they weren’t brand new, they didn’t have a tag on them giving their official name.  I few years later I saw the smooth one in a store labeled as “Twisty Tangle.”  The smaller ones with square links make little clicky noises as you manipulate them.  I don’t know how the inventors imagined the purchasers using them.  I suppose just a high-tech way to twiddle your thumbs?  But I’ve found the perfect career for them-- as “protein folding” demonstrators!  Whenever I teach a science unit that touches upon biochemistry, I go out of my way to talk about protein folding-- a topic that everyone should know about but few people do. 

    I remember way back when my oldest children were little and I had not started homeschooling yet (and therefore I was still a complete dummy!) that I met a graduate student here at Penn State who tried to explain to me what he was researching.  I remember him using the term “protein folding.”  I don’t remember much else about the conversation, undoubtedly because I didn’t have any way for my brain to file the information.  I didn’t know enough about the structure of proteins to see how or why they could fold.  Now I know that the amino acid “beads” that make up the protein chain have physical and electrical properties that make them “like” or “dislike” water and certain other amino acids.   These “likes” and “dislikes” make the protein warp and twist until all the aminos are happy with their position.  The result is that each protein has a unique (weird) shape.  The shape is what will determine that protein’s job. 

    Much of biochemistry operates on the “lock and key” principle, where certain proteins fit perfectly into other protein formations, like a key fits into a lock.  When the protein key slides into the protein lock, the chemical job gets done.  Rarely, a “mimic” protein will be close enough in shape to another protein to be able (or almost able) to mimic its job.  For example, the antibody protein that has the necessary shape for attacking strep bacteria also happens to be the right fit to attack heart cells.  The little antibodies run around attacking anything that matches their shape.  They don’t know about bacteria and heart cells- -only shapes.  That’s why when you come down with strep the doctors won’t let you fight it off naturally.  The necessary antibodies will attack not only the bacteria but your heart tissue as well, causing what we call “rheumatic fever.”

    It’s very hard to explain how protein twist and fold creating weird 3D shapes.  These toys are a huge help. Of course, they can’t be posed to show any real protein formations, but they give a pretty good idea of the concept involved.

    Many diseases are caused by incorrect protein folding.  For this reason, protein folding is on the forefront of medical research.  Computer programmers have teamed up with medical researchers to create databases of correct protein shapes.  It turns out, however, that figuring out the exact shape of a protein is very difficult and very time consuming.  Ironically, computers can’t do it alone.  It often takes human intuition to solve the puzzle.   Then some programmers came up with a brilliant idea-- why not tap into one of the modern world’s greatest resources-- bored, computer-savvy teenagers!  If a computer game could be designed where “winning the game” meant getting a protein folded correctly, perhaps thousands, or even millions of young people would donate some of their time to help the protein database.  They did create the game, and you can play it at: foldit.com.  Another website lest you donate your computer’s “down time” to protein folding: folding@home.com

OBJECT #1: Chinese Terracotta statues

    Don’t startle as you round the bend from the woodshop to the laundry room!  Be prepared to catch a glimpse of two figures lurking behind the door.  When I first made these life-size “stand-ups” of the famous Chinese terracotta statues from Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s tomb, and my subconscious wasn’t yet used to having them in the house, I would startle just for a split second every time I caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of my eye.  Not a real startle-- just one of those fleeting momentary things that can almost pretend didn’t happen.  But I can’t tell you how many times I caught myself tensing for a split second.  They are now hidden far enough behind the door that they don’t register as human shapes the way they did when I had them standing in the wood shop or in my studio area.   In fact, I’d forget about them altogether if I didn’t have to close the laundry room door once in a while.

    The figures are cut from cheap plywood which I then painted, both front and back, with white paint primer.  Then I used chalk pastels on top of the primer.  I sprayed the finished drawings with fixative.  I always hate to apply the fixative; it ruins the very fine blending and shading.  However, leaving chalk drawings unfixed is rarely an option.

    I made these as props for our homeschool group’s China unit a few years ago.  I also made a one-size-fits-all Qin Shi Huangdi costume for the students to wear as they stood for their picture, next to these two statutes.  I set all these against a solid color wall so that I could then use the Photoshop magic eraser tool to quickly and easily (so I thought) erase the background and replace it with a photograph of the landscape around the burial site (near Xi’an).

  
    I enjoyed our China unit much more than I had expected.  (Hope the kids enjoyed it as much as I did.) By the end of the unit, China had gone way up on my list of interesting places I might want to visit some day.

    You can see some of the other resources I created for our China unit by going to the free downloads “History/Social Studies” section of my website.

  http://www.ellenjmchenry.com/homeschool-freedownloads/history-games/index.php