For her eighth birthday, Maddie Sanders told her mom she wanted nothing more than to read to dogs at the museum. It seems like an unlikely service, but the Houston Museum of Natural Science at Sugar Land is the perfect fit for such a childhood wish. Through the P.A.W.S. (Pets Are Wonderful Support) Reading Program, […]
Throughout history, women in power have been the target of hostility, violence and mistrust. But why? What makes female leadership so objectionable? Egyptologist Dr. Kara Cooney and Houston native searches for the answer in her new book, The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power. Cooney returns to the Houston Museum of Natural Science […]
What do you get when you throw a 30-year-old copywriter into a summer camp classroom full of 10-year-olds? A lot of weird looks and kids asking, “Miss, does he actually think he’s 10 years old? Is that why he’s here?” That, and an aqua T-shirt. Since Xplorations Summer Camp is in its final swing at the […]
Pluto has a heart. A big, icy heart surrounded by a sea of red. It was more of a fluke of photographic composition, a perfect angle for the shot that astronomers and engineers waited for more than nine years to receive, but nonetheless the image has served to anthropomorphize the dwarf planet enough to make […]
After 90 days working at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, here’s the verdict: I love it here! Through research required to compose and edit posts for this blog, I have learned about voracious snails, shark extinction, dinosaur match-ups, efforts to clean up ocean plastic pollution, Houston’s flooding cycle, a mysterious society in south China, […]
On Feb. 15, 2013, with no warning, an asteroid 20 meters in diameter and weighing more than the Eiffel Tower plunged into the Earth’s atmosphere over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk at speeds in excess of 19 kilometers per second. At such a high speed, the 14,000-ton object exploded at altitude, creating a flash 30 […]
Ever wonder where George Lucas got his ideas for the futuristic costumes in Star Wars? Darth Vader’s intimidating helmet seems the stuff of a sci-fi nightmare, and a hot, glowing light saber seems like a swordfighter’s dream. These costumes remain some of the most iconic in film history, but they were based in reality. Lucas […]
Far up in north Texas, past Ft. Worth and Wichita Falls, past the point where the flora turns from trees to shrubs, past a town with a funny name, Megargel, pop. 203, past a massive wind farm with tall white blades lording over thousands of acres of land, and then another, and another, lies the […]
I once heard there is an island of plastic the size of Texas floating in the North Pacific. Turns out this is just a myth. The truth is much, much worse. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not an island. You can’t stand on it or walk across it. It’s more like a cloud of […]
Flooding changed the face of Houston Monday and Tuesday, turning the peaceful bayou into a raging torrent swelling beyond its banks, spilling over major highways and washing into communities where it did its worst damage. Busy roads turned into lakes of steaming vehicles as hundreds were lost in the floodwaters, and some 1,400 structures were […]
