Beyond Bones

The beginning of the school year is an exciting time for teachers and students alike. We have a quick science activity here that will engage  new students and make your room too cool appropriately cool for school: Shrinky Dinks. There are myriad of ways you can use this activity, so the application is up to […]

Pour yourself a spot of tea, loves, have a biscuit and brace yourselves for a story of utmost British-ness. If you’ve visited our esteemed new Hall of Ancient Egypt, you may have noticed that many of the items on display are on loan from Chiddingstone Castle in the United Kingdom. The historic house is the […]

With all the fuss over megalodon lately (including the Discovery Channel’s doubled-down non-apology), we decided to give some attention to a couple of grossly unappreciated other prehistoric sharks. Great whites are great and all, and megalodon is a marvelous monstrosity, but there are two other prehistoric shark species that really blow everything else out of […]

Last Friday we launched our new summer program aimed at getting patrons involved in some of our behind-the-scenes, day-to-day maintenance of the Cockrell Butterfly Center: the Friday Feeding Frenzy! Every Friday this summer, the Butterfly Center staff will feed their live animal collection in the view of our patrons, allowing you guys to learn a […]

While the Texas Department of Transportation — aka TxDOT — is tasked with providing safe and reliable transportation solutions for the traveling public, the agency is also committed to preserving the environment and its history. The Dimond Knoll site (41HR796) was discovered in northwestern Harris County in the fall of 1996 by a team of […]

For us, as for many science lovers, it’s currently our favorite season. Some might even call it the most wonderful time of the year: Shark Week. The Discovery Channel’s annual full-channel takeover, devoted to all things predatory and sleek, is one of the single-most anticipated science events of the year. So we were a little […]

The Museum is always interested in educating its fans, whether that’s within our exhibition halls or online. If your daily social media experience doesn’t include the Houston Museum of Natural Science, you might be missing out on news that can feed your noggin. Photo courtesy of melontao via Instagram For example, this week one visitor […]

We’re hosting late-night this weekend. On Saturday, August 10, the George Observatory will be staying open until the wee ours of 2 a.m. in order to proffer the best possible viewing of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. Each year in mid-August, a stream of debris ejected by the Swift-Tuttle comet, called the Perseid cloud, becomes […]

Editor’s Note: This blog comes to us courtesy of longtime volunteer John Moffitt. I lead tours through the new HMNS Paleo Hall and spend a lot of time in the Paleozoic. Sometimes this ties in with a class on trilobites. During these tours, I answer a lot of questions like, “What is a trilobite, anyway?” […]

Venus remains in the west at dusk. It outshines everything but the Sun and Moon, so you can begin observing it during deep twilight. As August ends, Venus begins to approach Saturn. Saturn is now shining in the south/southwest at dusk. Although not as bright as Venus, it does outshine the stars around it, so […]