Free Event for Educators this Saturday!

Published by Allison on January 21, 2011 at 2:09 pm in Education

Museum Educators Open House

Tomorrow – January 22, 2011,
9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Thinking of including a trip to the Houston Museum District for your class? Interested in professional development opportunities at some of Houston’s coolest venues? Want a Museum docent or staff member to bring artifacts or demonstrations to your classroom for an extra boost before those standardized tests or just as a cool surprise for a great semester?

You can learn about what 42 of Houston’s Museums have to offer this Saturday as the Houston Museum District presents the Museum Educators Open House!

Museum Educators Open House is a conference style event free of charge for registered Educators from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. followed by the opportunity to visit participating Museums until their doors close on Saturday with your MEOH wristband!

HMNS is one of the host museums (all within walking distance) where many of the day’s presentations will be held in 14 of our classroom spaces in the lower level of the Museum. Educators who attend for at least 3 hours, attend at least 3 presentations and show up between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. at one of the participating host museum’s registration table to trade in your “passport” for a certificate of attendance.

Extra special things that HMNS is offering for the Educators participating in MEOH 2011 include discounted tickets for educators to visit our special exhibitions Real Pirates and Forgotten Gateway - as well as an awesome 20% discount in the HMNS gift shop!

We hope to see you all here on Saturday!!

Tis the Season to be worried about butterflies!

Published by Erin M on December 30, 2009 at 3:51 pm in Plants & Insects

photo credit: Anita363

This year, I think we’ve gotten a record number of phone calls from people who are concerned about butterflies they’ve seen near their homes or have raised in their gardens. It’s no wonder that butterflies are very popular around here and no one wants to see them perish in the not-so-toasty temperatures outside! It may seem silly to some, but I can certainly sympathize. I spend a great deal of my time raising insects and I certainly get attached and would do things to care for them that might make some question my sanity! However, butterflies and other insects have been surviving through the winter for millions of years. Butterflies native to Houston have definitely got the climate figured out by now! So, before you go darting across your lawn after that poor butterfly, there are some things you should know!

As I pointed out in my post, “Where Have all the Bugs Gone?” bugs, including butterflies, are not quite as sensitive as many believe. These small but resourceful beings have quite a few tricks up their sleeves! Over-wintering, hibernation, migration, hunkering down; these are just a few examples. Butterflies in Houston pretty much have it made. Especially when you consider the fact that there are butterflies in the North, like the Morning Cloak, that can survive through a truly frigid winter and emerge in the spring better than ever! Our winter is very mild comparatively, with plenty of warm, sunny days. Here are some common Houston butterflies and how they survive the winter.

Papilio thoas nealces [The Giant Swallowtail]

photo credit: fesoj Giant Swallowtail

Swallowtails (giant swallowtail, black swallowtail, spicebush swallowtail, and more) - These butterflies spend the winter in a suspended state called diapause and they spend it as a chrysalis. They are immobile, take in no food or water, and are extremely resilient. They can certainly hadle the very few freezes we experience here in Houston. I have had swallowtail chrysalids that have not emerged for nearly a year and a very healthy butterfly was the result!

Longwings – The gulf frittilary is our resident longwing. This is another butterfly that can be seen year-round in any of the four life stages. The mobile stages such as the larvae and adult will hunker down to avoid freezing temps. The immobile stages, the egg and pupa, are more resistant to temperature.

photo credit: kaibara87 Cloudless Sulphur

Sulphurs - These sunny yellow butterflies can be found all over the world, including above the Arctic Circle – how’s that for cold! Favorites like the cloudless sulphur are found throughout the entire year as adults, even during the winter. When the temperatures drop too low, they hide in crevices in trees or man-made shelters and they fly when it is warm, gathering food to continue to carry them through the winter.

Monarchs - These are the most popular of all! Monarchs are known for their incredible migration from as far north as Canada, down to the mountains of Central Mexico. These butterflies, unlike some others, cannot withstand the freezing temperatures of the North. They do not only go to Mexico, some find their winter homes in California, Peninsular Florida and the Keys, and even here. We have a population that does not migrate from Houston because the temperatures are warm enough. If you see a Monarch outside during this time, don’t worry, they haven’t missed the boat, they are quite happy here!

photo credit: Randy Son Of Robert

So you see, we do not need to intervene – butterflies know what to do when it gets cold. The temperatures outside right now are not deadly, just uncomfortable. Insects can go a long time without food or water and as soon as the sun re-appears, they will get their fill. If it does freeze, they will seek shelter.

Now, if you have been raising monarchs or other butterflies in your garden and you bring them inside to be warm, there is a chance they will emerge as adults when it is way to chilly for them to be released. They cannot be kept alive inside your home either. In this case, we will happily allow you to release them into our conservatory where they will be quite happy! Some butterflies will indeed perish during these few cold months, but it’s all part of the cycle that has been going since the creation of Earth and we should try not to intervene to much!

Until next time, Happy Butterfly Watching!

Au reservoir: A guide to new oil discoveries

Published by Daniel B on September 18, 2009 at 11:36 am in Energy

photo credit: Robnas Monster

Many of you have read the article in the Houston Chronicle where BP announced they have found 3 billion barrels of crude oil off the coast of Texas. Many of us instantly think, how do they find that oil? How do they determine how much oil is there? And how does that compare with other fields around the world?

So, I thought I’d answer some of those questions. Companies find oil fields by using many different types of scientists and surveying tools. Geologists and geophysicists (two types of scientists that really rock) use a variety of surveying methods such as 3D and 4D seismic scans, magnetic surveys, and gravity surveys. All of these scans and surveys help them to examine rock cores to see what the permeability and porosity of the formations are. These are not the only scientists or tools used for oil fields, but they are some that are mentioned in our Wiess Energy Hall.

photo credit: nestor galina

Once the scientists think they know where the oil will be, a test well is drilled. If oil is found in the rock formation, then the scientists go back to the seismic data to see how large the formation is. They will drill more wells (well, well, well) to find more information on the formations such as where the oil comes into contact with the water. They will also go back to the core sample to look at the characteristics of the rock the oil was found in.

Now that they have found the oil and looked at the characteristics of the reservoir, how do they estimate the number of barrels of oil? There are the proven reserves which is the amount of oil that the scientists are sure of getting out of the field using current methods. The unproven reserves are the amount oil that the scientists think are there but cannot be reached yet.

photo credit: tvol

But how does that new field off the coast of Texas rate with the others in the world? Well, its not the biggest. That award goes to the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia. It is estimated that the field has 71 billion barrels of oil. Saudi Arabia claims to have over 200 billion barrels of oil in its fields, while America, before this new discovery, claimed to have 21 billion barrels of oil still in its fields. But what it really comes down to is production; or how many barrels of oil does a field produce a day. The Ghawar field produces 5 million barrels a day! The world produces 80 million barrels a day. America only produces 5 million barrels a day but uses 19 million barrels a day. Most of which is used for gasoline (America uses about 378 million gallons a day.)

So the scientists use a variety of surveying methods to find oil fields and to determine their size. The new find off the coast of Texas increases America’s crude oil reserves by 33%, but what will really matter is how much the new field can be made to produce. (How much crude could a crude field churn out if a crude field churns out crude?)