Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!! (Well, several winners, actually.)

By Claire Eamer

Every now and then, we have to boast about the amazing awesomeness of the Sci/Why crew. After all, somebody's gotta do it. Why not one of us?

So - without further ado - let me announce that my colleague, L.E. Carmichael has won this year's Lane Anderson Award for the best Canadian youth science book published in 2014. Ta da! She earned the award with her book Fuzzy Forensics: DNA Fingerprinting Gets Wild.

Part mystery and part scientific guidebook, Fuzzy Forensics tells the story of cutting-edge science put to work to solve a wildlife crime, how the science works, and why wildlife crime is important. It's both fascinating and fun.



Pretty impressive, eh? But that's not the end of our amazing accomplishments.

In September, Sci/Why blogger and Science Lady, Shar Levine, was presented with a 2015 Alumni Honour Award by her alma mater, the University of Alberta, for her work in advocating for children's science literacy.

Shar's writing partner, Leslie Johnstone, is no slouch either. While Shar was being honoured at the University of Alberta, Leslie was named one of the 100 leaders in education in British Columbia by the University of British Columbia. Besides writing dozens of entertaining science books for kids, in partnership with Shar, Leslie has taught science at Point Grey Secondary School in Vancouver since 1988 and is currently acting vice principal and head of the science department there.

Congratulations to all of our winners!

Ancient Fish Farming in Hawaii

By Shar Levine

What do science writers do when they go on vacation to the Big Island of Hawaii? If you are Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone, you look for science at the beach.  At 'Anaeho'omalu Bay, or "A" Bay as the locals call it, the pair spent an afternoon at the anchialine ponds located between the Marriot Hotel and the beach.

Anchialine ponds are only found on two of the Hawaiian islands, Hawaii and Maui. These small inland ponds are found close to the ocean but are not connected to the surface of the sea. Salt water from the ocean seeps through the ground where it is mixed with fresh water flowing from the mountains. The pond is less salty than the ocean, but more salty than fresh water from a stream. The mixture of the two creates a unique "brackish" water for the fish living in the pond.

Anchialine Ponds, with "A" Bay in background

Hiding in the algae and water plants along the sides of the pond you can see shrimp, crabs, mollusks and tiny fish.  Much to the delight of tourists, an eel will sometimes poke its head out from the lava rocks in the waters just below the bridge connecting the pond to the beach. In the deeper section of the pond, large fish including amberjack and barracuda patrol the waters. The salinity of the pond varies with the depth and temperature of the water. Creatures who live in these waters are different from their relatives who live in the ocean and scientists are interested in studying how the fish have adapted to survive in this environment.

Types of fish found at "A" Bay pond

The ancient Hawaiians used these ponds as an early form of fish farming. There was very little work for the people to do. Small fish would enter the pond through a gated channel from the ocean to an outer pond. From there, the fish would thrive on algae and plants growing in the waters. The fish soon became too big to leave the pond through the gate. When the fish were adults,  they could easily be caught in a net and served for dinner.

The ponds form their own ecosystems. Here's how the food chain works:

Genetics 101: Cross talk

By guest blogger Leslie Johnstone

What do you get when you cross a horse with a donkey? It depends!

A mule, like this one, results from crossing a horse and a donkey.

When a male donkey is crossed with a female horse, the resulting offspring is a mule. If a male horse is crossed with a female donkey, then the baby is called a hinny. Hinnies are much less common and tend to be smaller than mules and look more like horses.

Horses are half of the equation that makes a mule or a hinny.

When two different species of animal, such as horses and donkeys, are bred, the offspring are called hybrids. Both donkeys and hinnies are hybrids. Donkeys have 62 chromosomes in their cells, but horses have 64. Mules and hinnies both have 63 chromosomes, being  a blend of both parents.

Mules and hinnies can't be successfully bred to other mules and hinnies, but there have been some cases of female mules giving birth to babies sired by horses or by donkeys.

The other half of the equation is a donkey, like this one.

Mules are usually very smart, strong animals and are used as pets, for transportation, and for farming. They have harder hooves and stronger coats than either of their parents. Mules and hinnies are also generally longer living than their parents and more resistant to diseases.

Leslie Johnstone and her writing partner, Shar Levine, are co-authors of dozens of fun practical-science books for kids. Leslie took the photos appearing with this post.

Sci/Why Bloggers and Friends Win National Awards

By Claire Eamer. Photos by Juanita Bawagan.

The Canadian Science Writers' Association (CSWA) handed out its top awards at its recent annual meeting in Toronto, and Sci/Why folk were front and centre.

Vancouver-based Sci/Why blogger Shar Levine and her writing partner, Leslie Johnstone, won the Association's Science in Society Youth Book Award for Dirty Science: 25 Experiments with Soil, published by Scholastic. You can peek inside the book here.

Shar Levine (l) and Leslie Johnstone receive their award from CSWA president Stephen Strauss.

Victoria freelance writer Jude Isabella won the coveted Science Journalism award for her story "The Secret Lives of Bears" published in British Columbia Magazine's Fall/Winter 2013 issue. Jude, former editor of YesMag, the late lamented Canadian children's science magazine, was part of the group that launched Sci/Why. You can read her prize-winning article here and you can even see the scientists at work in this short video.

Jude Isabella thanks the CSWA, while Association president Stephen Strauss looks on.