Beyond Bones

Editor’s Note: Look to the skies as HMNS Astronomer James Wooten explains the sky happenings for the month of August, including the Perseid Meteor Shower. Saturn is up literally all night long this month.  Look for it low in the southeast at nightfall.    Venus remains in the morning sky this month.  Venus outshines everything […]

The Houston Museum of Natural Science staff is full of people who spent their wonder years walking its halls during field trips and family visits. One of those is membership manager Jacquelyn DiStefano. “I came here the first time in fourth grade,” she says. “This was when the Grand Hall looked much different. The dinosaurs […]

The plant cart in the museum is a great place to find some interesting plants and Greenhouse Manager Soni Holladay has curated a list of what you may want to grab on your next trip to the HMNS Museum Store. We regularly stock the cart with blooming annuals and perennials that feed pollinators like native […]

Quietly munching on the leafy fronds before them, the mighty Stegosaurus unknowingly eats its last meal as the eyes of a fearsome predator peer out from the shadows. With a blood curdling roar, the king of the dinosaurs, the Tyrannosaurus rex, erupts from the red boulders, hunger on its mind… Never mind that these two […]

Editor’s Note: HMNS Astronomer James Wooten shines a light on the July 2022 sky happenings. Venus remains in the morning sky this month.  Venus outshines everything except the Sun and the Moon, so you can try to find it low in the east at dawn.  Venus remains a ‘morning star’ for most of 2022. Mars […]

It’s fitting that as director Paul Phelan speaks to us from the windswept, idyllic west coast of Ireland, decompressing with his family between film projects, one of his children will soon leave the nest. “Sea Lions: Life by a Whisker,” his newest nature film showing inside the Houston Museum of Natural Science’s Wortham Giant Screen […]

Visiting the Cockrell Butterfly Center is a wonderful, sometimes cathartic experience. To make sure every plant, animal, and human has the best experience possible, I sat down with CBC Manager, Lauren Davidson, to document a helpful list of so-called “Do’s and Don’ts” to consider when visiting our fluttery friends. Don’t worry, it’s mostly a fun […]

At least once a week, David Temple receives a breathless message about an oddly-shaped rock or stony object some individual came across in their backyard or while on a nature hike. Almost everyone thinks they have found a priceless paleontological artifact that will change their lives forever. Sorry, but it’s not a dinosaur egg. As […]

Editor’s Note: Each month, the astronomers of the Burke Baker Planetarium shed starlight on the night’s sky happenings. Take note of what’s out there for June 2022. Venus remains in the morning sky this month.  Venus outshines everything except the Sun and the Moon, so you can try to find it low in the east […]

What do you get when you combine the talents of executive producer Jon Favreau, naturalist Sir David Attenborough, composer Hans Zimmer, and the power of prehistoric life in ultra-high-definition? Why, Apple TV’s newest series, “Prehistoric Planet”, which has unfolded this week on the streaming service in five parts. One early review from CNN applauded the […]