Chris

Adventure is my middle name. Well… actually it’s French. Literally, it’s Christopher French Wells. But the spirit of adventure lives in me, and has always inspired me to go out and seek new experiences. I’ve traveled to Europe, Mexico and South America, as well as few places in the U.S. I’ve seen different places with different cultures, learned some things about humanity and about myself in particular. My goal is to lend my unique perspective, carved out of my own triumphs and tragedies, fears and fancies encountered during my years of college and international travel, to the other great voices of this blog. Hopefully to the enjoyment of our readers…

The Deadly Dress Test!

Today on Beyond Bones we’re sharing the results of a rather unusual test that was recently performed by the curators of our blockbuster special exhibition Death by Natural Causes. The test in question involved a Victorian-era dress, a book printed during the early 20th century and a can of insecticide. According to our research, all of these items […]

How Photography Changed History In More Ways Than You Think

It’s National Camera Day, which is a particularly relevant holiday to our institution since we just opened our new special exhibition In Focus, which is basically an immersive art space where you can go and take really cool pictures of yourself and your friends. Seeing all the visitors who have come to the exhibit to […]

HMNS Travel Guide: The Buffalo Soldiers in Texas

Today on Beyond Bones I’m going to offer up a few potential travel destinations for those of you who like to visit little-known and seldom explored places that have awesome histories. The destinations in question are a string of ruined forts that date back to the era when West Texas was a still a lawless […]

The Real Moon Hoax That You Haven’t Heard Of

Most of us are familiar with the crazy moon landing conspiracy theories that were sparked soon after Apollo 11 returned to Earth, but hardly anybody knows about the real moon hoax that occurred more than a hundred years before America’s Space Program was even conceived. On August 25, 1835 The Sun, a penny-press newspaper based […]

The Bone Wars: A Real Life Battle For Bones

Today on Beyond Bones I’m going to tell you a story of two Victorian Academics who spent the majority of their careers going to absolutely ridiculous lengths to out-science each other in a decades long clash of brains and ego. The feud has come to be called the “Bone Wars” by Paleontologists and its effects […]

Why Does Satan Like The Violin So Much?

Violins are amazingly versatile instruments; they are equally at home whining their melodies in symphony orchestras in New York as they are on front porches in Appalachia. Apparently, they are even appreciated in Hell. For those of us who have heard the song The Devil Went Down to Georgia by the Charlie Daniels Band (and I imagine that’s most us) the […]

5 Interesting Facts About the Mighty Megalosaurus

Megalosaurus doesn’t get as much love as it deserves. It’s one of those B-list dinosaurs that hardly ever gets talked about. In fact, if Megalosaurus gets talked about at all, it’s usually in reference to the character Earl Sinclair on the amazing tv show Dinosaurs (1991-1994), who was a Megalosaurus and also awesome. But there’s much […]

Hatshepsut: Neither a Mad Queen Nor a Bad Mother!

HMNS’ collections are more than just curiosities, they’re mementos of past lives, each with a story to tell and a lesson to teach. Take, for example, the chunk of pink granite from our Hall of Ancient Egypt pictured below. This two and a half foot tall rock may look pretty big, but it’s only a […]

Fighting Nature With Nature: Using Mosquito Assassins to Make Summer Safer

Exciting things are happening in the Cockrell Butterfly Center! Anita Schiller, Director of the Biocontrol Mosquito Initiative in Harris County Precinct 4 is working with our staff to test an innovative, eco-friendly way to control the population of mosquitoes in Harris Country using a natural predator of everybody’s least favorite insect called the mosquito assassin […]

Missed Connections: Maya Seashell Currency

The world is a vast place, but all life living on its surface sprung from the same origins. Everyone and everything on this planet is connected. Sometimes the connections may not be readily apparent, but they are there.. Our “Missed Connections” series is all about exploring the unexpected connections between objects in our different exhibits. […]