Beyond Bones

Royalty and cracking codes and castaways, oh my! It might sound like a plot summary of a new hit novel, but it’s actually a few of the highlights that our online followers liked and shared this week. From a fancy dinner with Prince Charles to edible insects to the difference between Dimetrodons and Uma Thurman, […]

The moon’s appearance in the sky follows a 29.5-day cycle. During the cycle, it first appears as a crescent. The lighted portion that you can in the night sky see becomes larger as days pass, growing until you see a full moon. As more days pass, the lighted portion gets smaller again, until no moon […]

When most people think of a port city, they think of beaches and a lot of waterfront property. They think of palm trees and salty sea breezes. But not all port cities are on the coast. In the United States, there are numerous inland ports (ports on fresh waterways) such as those in Milwaukee and […]

“Today we will: build a robotic hand; build a roving chassis for your robotic prototype; program your partner; study gearations; learn robotic parts; visit the Wiess Energy Hall and build a model magic robot.” So began my day as a Roving Robot Xplorations camper, when I was greeted by this extensive, exciting to-do list. All […]

In the time before TV or radio, people had to entertain themselves. Some of the quickest games to start were word games.  Either take a theme and pun away, or set up different rules like starting the next word with the letter that ended the previous word.  For more formal entertainment, you could create a […]

Beginning last Wednesday, July 17 through this Thursday, July 25, the Nautilus and her two ROVs, Hercules and Argus, will be exploring a shipwreck located in the Gulf of Mexico. The wreckage site was discovered by Shell Oil while scanning a lease location. Because the ship has not yet been identified, it is being called the […]

As you walk through our new Hall of Ancient Egypt, you might wonder how we know so much today about a civilization that thrived thousands of years ago. Here is how we got there: For most of the Middle Ages and even during the Renaissance, ancient Egypt was a vague concept in the Western world, […]

HUZZAH! We have the missing bone: the largest unit in the Dimetrodon skeleton, the one bony element we never hoped to find! We thought weʼd have to sculpt a fake one, but now we have the real thing — the INTERCLAVICLE. Whatʼs that you say? Never heard of an interclavicle? Its common name is the […]

We’re happy to report that our first Museum Store Trunk Show — featuring the works of revered local designer Rebecca Lankford — was a smashing success. If you missed it, fear not, ’cause we’ve got more in the pipeline. But you don’t have to wait until a Friday for great Museum Store finds; check out […]

Recently, we were featured in a Houston Press article, “10 Things the Houston Museum of Natural Science Could Do Better.” While we welcome both positive and negative feedback from our guests — from pithy tweets to local press — we now realize that we’ve been a bit remiss in filling you in on our master […]