Eyebrows: An example of how little we know about ourselves

I’ve been reading and writing about eyebrows this week. I’m learning a lot. It has made me think, with amazement, how human beings (like me) are so oblivious to our own biology in so many ways. I mean, eyebrows are just two strips of hair; they’re kind of boring, perhaps even a little gross. Even though I look at eyebrows dozens or even hundreds of times a day, I’ve never paid them much attention before. All this time, I had no idea how important they are to everyday life.

For one, they are crucial for communicating emotion– more so than words. Our eyebrows tell others when we are angry, sad, afraid and happy. We also use them in conversation, like visual punctuation, as well as to convey empathy. And we send specific messages with them; raising our eyebrows quickly, known as the eyebrow flash,is something that cultures around the world do automatically to send signals. The message can be “hello,” or “yes,” or “I’m flirting with you.”

Detail, portrait of a man with raised eyebrows, Giovanni Battista Moroni

Eyebrows talk, and we are very good at understanding what they are saying, without thinking. But there is more. Eyebrows are crucial for us to recognize faces and determine the identity of its owner. That is one reason why we first look at the eyebrows and eyes when we see a face. People’s eyebrows give us even more information – whether they are male or female, and to some extent how old they are.

THICK EYEBROWS ON A YOUNg male

We also seem to read information from eyebrows about people’s personalities, though there is no evidence (and it is unlikely) that eyebrow shape and personality are actually related. We judge a face with thin eyebrows to be happier, weaker, and more intelligent. Thick eyebrows are judged as stubborn, strong, even mean. This makes me wonder if there is a biological reason for people in so many cultures, especially women, altering their brows to make them thinner. Could it be that we are unconsciously changing what our faces communicate to the world?

Female eyebrow, thinned and tattooed

So here I am, looking at my own eyebrows in the mirror several times a day, using them to detect the emotions and identity of the faces of everyone I meet, and moving them up and down and in and out to send signals to people without being aware of it. My mind pays attention to eyebrows when I’m speaking to people and when I’m watching actors on a screen, and registers and understands the signals they convey without my knowledge.

My conscious mind can try to fake emotions using my eyebrows, but this uses a different part of my brain, and like most of us I am not very good at faking it. The movements we make when deliberately “making a face” are faster, bigger, and last longer. Most people have little difficulty telling the difference between when we are faking a frown and when we really mean it.

Studying the science of eyebrows has made it very clear that my brain is causing me to behave in ways that I do not know about. This makes me wonder what else I’m doing that I have no control over. It makes me uncomfortable to think that I’m an animal, a product of evolution, and that I respond to my environment – including other people – in such complex ways without my knowledge.

It is also marvellous to realize how little we understand about our own biology. Eyebrows are right under our noses (well, actually above our noses), are utterly unique to our species, and yet are not fully understood. From a purely selfish perspective, this means there is plenty of intrigue and mystery left to explore, and plenty still to write about.

A Librarian on the Importance of Access to Information

Why?

Why?
How come?

Those are probably the first questions a child asks in any language. I wished we'd never stop asking 'why' and 'how come'?
Looking for answers to these two questions has probably led to many inventions, and it has lead me to write many books.
How does a tiny little seed know to grow into a stalk of corn or into a towering cedar tree? How did it get programmed?

I love doing research and finding answers to my questions. For my latest book, Amazing Animals, I had so much fun reading and learning about mind blowing animals facts.
Did you know that the fig wasp and the fig tree have a symbiotic relationship? Neither one could live without the other.
The wasp bores a hole into the fruit, lays its eggs and dies. This means that when you eat one of those crunchy brown fig newton cookies, you are chomping down on some dead wasp remains... Gross huh? But a cool fact.

The octopus is a pretty amazing animal, too. Scientists in the Seattle Aquarium could not figure out what was killing their sharks. Little did they suspect the octopus. Have a look at this cool video which sheds a whole new light on the octopus: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7004909622962894202

When I write, I submit a proposal to a publisher whom I hope will be interested in this sort of book. The publisher decides on the title of a book. They also decide who will be in the illustrator. I have been lucky enough, with several of my books, to be allowed to collaborate with the illustrator.

W. Alan Hancock is a young, and impressive, wildlife artist. When I saw his art, I suggested to Tundra Books that he illustrate Amazing Animals. I was so happy that they agreed. His art looks so real... Check out his website:
http://www.wallanhancock.com/



Even if you don’t know much about anacondas or weaver birds, there are many questions you can ask about animals which you daily see around you.
Do you know how old ladybugs get to be?
Does a blackbird migrate? How far?
When my son was ten years old, he asked a great question. It had snowed and, when we stepped outside, he looked at the pristine white fields.
“Where does the white go when the snow melts?” he asked.
I told him “Don’t ever stop asking those kind of questions! And go in search of the answer!”
I wrote a poem about ‘where does the white go when the snow melts?’ and so you don’t need to write just nonfiction about your questions. Nonfiction can even be written in the form of poetry!
Have fun researching and writing!

Chewing on Books

Chewing on Books

In a culture overflowing with ear-worn copies of Harry Potter and jam-stained editions of Robert Munsch’s works, it’s easy to take books for granted. They’re everywhere—our homes, schools, bookstores, libraries, vast cubes of them at Costco.

With all these books, it’s easy to forget that we learn not just to read, but how to respect and use books. 

There’s a science to how we learn not just to read, but also to use books; an anthropology of books.

All you have to do is to go somewhere with a less developed book culture for this to jump right of the page, so to speak.

When I go on book tours to remote and rural communities in Canada, some of the most striking moments are talking with children for whom books are a novelty.

Several years ago I did a reading in Thompson, Manitoba’s public library as part of a Canada Book Week tour. The kids jostled in, sat cross-legged, smiling and laughing during the reading. Then came the book signings and sale. The librarian shepherded one elementary student up to me, ten dollars clenched in her small hand. She wanted to buy a copy of my book. It was the first book she’d ever bought. I was the first author she’d ever met.

The experience of buying a book and meeting an author are both important parts of book acculturation. Learning that you can access books and that, in seeing yourself reflected in that author, that you have the power and opportunity to write, to self-express, to share your experience-- whatever it might be—of the world.

The most dramatic example of this anthropology of books is in a community like Bunalwenhi, Uganda. A neighbour of mine recently returned from a sixth-month stint starting the small, rural community’s first library.

What she discovered is that filling the bookshelves was the easier part of fostering a book culture. People needed to learn to use books.

Bunalwenhi is primarily an oral culture. Even with mandatory primary school education, most children make it to the sixth grade—including learning the rudiments of reading and writing—without ever holding, let alone owning, a book.

For Bunalwenhi’s children arriving at the library was like going to a foreign land, populated with strange creatures—books. Kids in primary school approached the books as tactile objects. They pulled books from one-another’s hands, ripped them, hit one another with them, folded pages, scribbled in them. All the things that kids do with books, but here generally at a much younger age when they’re first introduced to books and learning how to properly use them, which became a focus for the librarians.

When we give babies books they can chew, or plasticized ones they play with in the bathtub, a watching anthropologist would jot down a note about book acculturation. Later some adult will joyfully read in a warm, bubbly tub; or feel a sense of peace reading the paper while chewing on breakfast toast.

Every time we hold a book, we can be glad that someone taught us not just how to read, but that a book can be ours to read.

Learn more about the Bunalwenhi Community Library:http://bunalwenhi.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/canadian-authored-childrens-books-in-bucl/

Talking About the E-Word

Well my goodness. Didn't that mention of evolution get things ramped up on this blog and over at the Globe and Mail? (As of today, 805 comments on that story.)

I'm not surprised and I doubt any of us who work in science journalism are. There is no winning the argument, so I generally don't engage. Of course then the "other side" will jump on that — as Daniel Loxton is now being engaged via a comment on Helaine's post. If you don't engage, you are thusly seen as unable to prove your thesis. It's all too exhausting, but it did get me thinking (yet again; I've written about evolution a fair bit) on how we do explain it. (Or not, as my next paragraph will attest.)

It is challenging science and needs some basic understanding of biology, genetics, adaption and such, but it needs to be discussed. I had a little wake-up call in the fall out from this story, in a carpenter's-house-is-never-built sort of way. When I asked my 14 year old what she understood about evolution she asked if that was something to do with humans and apes and added that her Grade 7 teacher didn't teach it, saying that everyone said it was too boring. Okay then. I have some work to do.

Perhaps I can use this as a starting point?



Isn't it a beauty? Yes, it is The Origin of Species as a BOARD BOOK! I found this little gem in a thrift store years ago (along with Shakespeare's All The World's a Stage and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, all in board book form.)

So, in this book, the very brave author (Harry Karlinsky) and illustrator (Brock Irwin) attempted to summarize Darwin's thesis in five wordless pages. The first one looks like this:



I just wonder what the publisher was thinking? Do you think that cover would engage your two-month-old baby? And, wow, I would just love to hear how the stories unfolded. Yet, it's a brave idea and somehow refreshing that back in 1991 someone thought evolution was an important enough idea to make it available to babies.

So, in my house, I think we will start opening up this discussion, a discussion I wrongly assumed was being covered elsewhere. I might just start with the board book, but I will also start with the idea of magic. Not magic in a woo-woo sort of way. Nor in a way that — poof, everything was created, perfectly formed in six days. But magic in a sense of evolution being such a logical, beautiful, ever-interesting, and always awe-inspiring explanation of life on Earth.

Evolution Wins the Lane Anderson Award

Courtesy of Gillian O'Reilly:

The Lane Anderson Award winners have been announced and the winner in the young reader category is:

Evolution by Daniel Loxton. (Kids Can Press)

Brought to life by amazing computer-generated images, illustrations and photographs, Evolution is an accessible introduction to a fundamental process of life on earth.

Daniel Loxton is Editor of Junior Skeptic, the children’s section of Skeptic magazine.

“This tour-de-force of science writing will spark the imagination of readers as they contemplate how we and other creatures came to be.” – The Jury

More information on the award and selection process can be found at www.laneandersonaward.ca

A Call to Arms – and Flippers, Too

Posted by Helaine Becker



Image: Cedars-Sinai.edu

 Readers of The Globe and Mail were treated to this headline this morning: “Children’s book too hot for U.S. publishers warmly received in Canada.” Naturally, I was intrigued.

The book in question turned out to be a children’s nonfiction title, published by Kids Can Press: Evolution, by Daniel Loxton.

I had the great pleasure of reading the book when I sat on the judges’ panel for the Lane Anderson Science Writing for Children Award back in June. I can tell you that the book was so well-received by all the judges that it made the shortlist, along with Sea Wolves is by Ian McAllister and Nicholas Read, and Ultimate Trains by Peter MacMahon (The winner of the award, and the $10,000 cash prize will be announced later today).

So what’s the trouble with Evolution? It’s factually correct, sensitively and intelligently written, and beautifully designed; the perfect introduction to one of the most important principles in biology, for children and adults.

But for U.S. publishers, according to Loxton, it was “too hot a topic” – i.e., they were afraid of pressure from creationist yahoos (my expression, not Loxton's).  All declined to publish it.

As a born-and-bred Yank, I’m appalled by this thoroughly chickenshit (a well-known scientific term) behavior on the part of my fellow Americans. Book people should know better. Forgive the book-related pun, but book people should  show some spine.  Yes, I know, the book biz is struggling, publishers need to feel certain that a book will make money. But really – you don’t think there’s a big enough market to support a terrific science book? Puh-leeze.

On the flip side, I’m feeling great pride that one of my own publishers here in Canada, Kids Can Press, isn’t as much of a weenie as their American counterparts. They knew a good book when they saw one, and decided to publish it for all the right reasons. I bet they’ll make a mint on it too.

Gillian O’Reilly, the Editor of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre News, is not surprised that Evolution found a home in Canada. She thinks Canadian publishers have distinguished themselves in science publishing for many years. “It's interesting that the American Institute of Physics award for science writing has gone to Canadian books five times since 2001,” she says. “The subjects have been wide-ranging (space, engineering feats and failures, dinosaur poop, math all around us and explosions of all sorts)… I see a lot of great Canadian books in my role, and I think Canadian publishers are willing to take risks and be inventive when it comes to science for kids.”

So bouquets and two opposable thumbs up go to Kids Can Press and all of the other vertebrates (i.,e, those with backbones) of the Canadian children’s publishing scene.

And brickbats go to American publishing invertebrates (read: woosies) who clearly have devolved since The Origin of the Species was published in 1859.

 To read the Globe article, go here.

To find out more about the Lane Anderson Award, go here.

To find out more about Daniel Loxton’s Evolution and/or to buy the book, go here.