Beyond Bones

Power Grid is one of my favorite games — but almost all of you have no idea what I’m talking about. OK, so, Power Grid is a German board game where you compete with other people to create the power grid inside Germany. To do this, you buy different types of power plants — wind […]

As you celebrate this upcoming Memorial Day weekend, take some time to appreciate an interesting sight in the sky — the gathering of Mercury, Venus and Jupiter low in the west-northwest at dusk. Right now, you notice Jupiter setting in the west at dusk. It outshines all stars we ever see at night, so it’s […]

Our correspondence with Ankh Hap, the original Museum mummy, continues this week with a discussion of ushabtis — miniature funerary figurines placed in ancient Egyptian tombs and meant to take the place of the deceased should they be called upon to perform any manual labor in the afterlife. Apparently one can’t even count on death […]

If you’ve been to the Wiess Energy Hall recently, you’ll remember the energy music video that starts off with “Energy is all around us.” Energy is all around us. It’s in the news every day. It’s also a prominent feature in sci-fi, comics and steampunk. For more than 45 years, we’ve had a certain Scottish […]

Until recently, our Early Investigations program — designed to pique the interests of young scientists aged 5 to 8 — could only permit 50 kids per day. But due to popular demand, we’ve doubled our capacity to 100 children for our two most popular topics — Paleontology and Insect Zoo — beginning June 1. Beginning […]

If you’ve been following along as our veteran Museum Mummy, Ankh Hap, prepares to adjust to his new living quarters, welcome back. If you’ve not, you’ll probably want to catch up here and here. The gist is this: Our previously singular mummy will be gaining several new roommates when he moves into the new Hall […]

Occasionally we receive artifacts at the Museum uncovered by curious residents who are looking to have their discoveries identified. The latest comes from 12-year-old Jersey Village resident Robby, who took it upon himself to write Associate Curator David Temple the following (quite impressive) letter: Dear Sir or Madam, My name is Robby, I am 12 […]

On Wednesday evening, we hosted the inaugural Intellectual Insights, an innovative lecture/question-and-answer session helmed by Hall of Ancient Egypt curators Dr. Dirk Van Tuerenhout and Tom Hardwick, with the Carlos Museum’s Dr. Peter Lacovara joining remotely via a video call. We took questions from a members-only live audience and from our HMNS Twitter feed, so our […]

If you didn’t make World Trekkers: Egypt last Friday, we hate to break it to you, but you missed out. There were belly dancers, a whirling dervish and TWO congenial camels, named Gunther (above) and Teddy (not pictured). Even our own Director of Social Media and Assistant Director of Public Relations & Marketing tapped into […]

“Otzi the Iceman,” a 5,300-year-old Copper Age/Neolithic man, was found in 1991 preserved in the Similaun Pass of the Otztal Alps at 10,500 feet between Italy and Austria. Since the discovery, extensive ongoing scientific investigations indicate that he is unique because “Otzi” is practically an archaeological site in himself. Unlike any other human remains of […]