by Greg Mayer Jerry and I have written about the plight of science at Chicago’s Field Museum, both here at WEIT, and with several colleagues in a letter to Science. In an editorial, Nature, the leading scientific journal of the English-speaking world, has also spoken out in support of science at the Field. In the […]
by Greg Mayer The Dinosaur Discovery Museum in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is becoming a hotbed of evolutionary activity. I already posted about their Darwin Day celebrations, and now I want to announce an upcoming event in their Spring Lecture series: Life and Death in a Cretaceous Coastal Swamp by my colleague, Prof. Chris Noto. The lecture […]
by Greg Mayer At the end of last year, the Field Museum in Chicago announced that it was considering draconian budgetary cuts to, and even more ominous institutional restructuring of, its scientific departments. Jerry and I wrote about this here at the time, decrying the Field administration’s plans. In January, Science published a news article […]
I’ve lived in Chicago for more than 25 years, and have watched the Field Museum’s public exhibits degenerate from an educational experience to an entertainment experience. This isn’t unique to that museum: it’s happening everywhere as natural history museums seek to make more money by displaying dinosaur skeletons and offering ‘hands-on’ experiences and animated exhibits […]
by Greg Mayer David Koch, billionaire industrialist and bankroller of right wing causes, has announced that he will donate $35 million to the National Museum of Natural History (aka the USNM) for an overhaul of its dinosaur hall. The New York Times’ Patricia Cohen writes: In 2009 he gave the Smithsonian $15 million to create […]
by Greg Mayer This year is the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the oldest natural history museum in the United States. Although now surpassed in size by some later-founded institutions, it is still one of the most important natural history museums in America, rich in types and […]
by Greg Mayer Snakes are not the only tetrapods (or even lizards) to have lost their legs. Whales have lost their hind legs (the front ones are now their flippers), and we have a pretty good fossil record of how they did so, thanks in large part to the work of Phil Gingerich of the […]
by Greg Mayer Matthew recently asked if there is life on Gliese 581g– a newly discovered Earth-like (in some ways) planet (I’m tempted to say “class M planet“). There’s also the question of if there is life in the Solar System (Earth doesn’t count)– on Europa, or Mars, or Enceladus, say. On the same trip […]
by Greg Mayer The Hall of Human Origins, a new permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian‘s National Museum of Natural History (aka the USNM) opened last March (at which time I got only a peek), and over the summer I finally got a chance to take in the whole exhibit. Like Edward Rothstein of the New […]
by Greg Mayer Last summer I made a visit to the Smithsonian’s United States National Museum of Natural History (aka the USNM), which I reported on here at WEIT. At the time, a couple of special evolution exhibits, tied to the Darwin bi- and sesquicentennials, were scheduled to open in September, and during my visit […]
