Bust out your planners, calendars, and PDAs (if you are throwback like that), it’s time to mark your calendars for the HMNS events of this week! 

Lecture – Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble
Monday, Oct. 26
2:30 p.m.
Marilyn Johnson’s will offer an entertaining look at the lives of contemporary archaeologists as they sweat under the sun for clues to the puzzle of our past. Johnson digs and drinks alongside archaeologists, chases them through the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and even Machu Picchu, and excavates their lives. Her subjects share stories we rarely read in history books, about slaves and Ice Age hunters, ordinary soldiers of the American Revolution, children of the first century, Chinese woman warriors, sunken fleets, mummies. What drives these archaeologists is not the money (meager) or the jobs (scarce) or the working conditions (dangerous), but their passion for the stories that would otherwise be buried and lost. Book signing of Lives in Ruins following lecture

Lecture – Amazonian Plant Biodiversity By Nancy Greig
Tuesday, Oct. 27
6:30 p.m.
The Amazonian basin has one of the highest diversities of plants in the world. Dr. Nancy Greig, director of the HMNS Cockrell Butterfly Center, will discuss some of the reasons for this great biodiversity with vibrant images of particularly interesting Amazonian species, including a number of plants involved in ant-plant symbioses. Following the lecture, the audience is invited to tour the Butterfly Center and Insect Zoo to view some living examples of plants and insects from the neotropical region.

Tricks, Treats & T.rex
HMNS at Sugar Land
Celebrate Halloween at HMNS Sugar Land and discover the scary side of science! Our annual Halloween Spooktacular returns for two days! Costumes encouraged both days.
Museum of Unnatural Science Haunted House – Friday, Oct. 30,  7 – 9 p.m.
Magical Pumpkin Maze – Saturday, Oct. 31, 10 a.m. – noon

Family Space Day
George Observatory
Saturday, Oct. 31
Make the George Observatory your pre-Halloween destination! Bring your trick-or-treaters to the George Observatory before the night’s festivities begin as we celebrate Family Space Day on Saturday, October 31. It wouldn’t be Halloween without costumes, so wear your scariest get-up as you sign up for our simulated spooky space flights.

Spirits & Skeletons
Saturday, Oct. 31
8:00 p.m. to Midnight
Calling all ghosts and ghouls, monsters and mummies, witches and werewolves: Houston’s favorite Halloween party — the one and only Spirits & Skeletons — is back at HMNS! With the entire museum open you can shake your stuff with a stegosaurus, grab a drink with a skink and get spellbound by bewitching gems, all to live music and your favorite hits played by DJs with fantastic food trucks parked right outside. Whether you go with scary and spooky or fab and kooky — dress up, party the night away at HMNS and we’ll put a spell on you!