By Scott Solomon Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution in the middle of the 19th century. Are his ideas still relevant today? Remarkably, even though Darwin’s insights on evolution were based on little more than observations and the results of simple experiments he conducted in his home, his insights have largely withstood the test […]
Lecture – Beauty and Morphology of Insects by Erin Mills Characteristics and adaptations of these unique and misunderstood creatures will be explored by Erin Mills, Director of the Cockrell Butterfly Center. Living exotic beetles, giant katydids, walking sticks, hissing cockroaches, beautiful butterflies and other exciting arthropods will compliment this special presentation and tour of the […]
Recently I did a Facebook Live (which you can see here) about whether it’s possible to extract dino DNA from a mosquito and use it to clone dinosaurs like they did in Jurassic Park. During the discussion (the short answer is no, by the way) I touched on another possible way to create dinosaurs that […]
Lecture – Dinosaurs of Hollywood, Truth is Better than Fiction by James Washington 1914 saw the first dinosaurs on the silver screen and the public has been in love ever since. The summer of 1993 was a turning point not only in film history and techniques, but also a resurgence of interest within the field […]
Whenever the topic of human evolution comes up in a classroom you are bound to hear the name “Lucy” thrown around. But who exactly is Lucy and why is she so important? Well, tracing the roots of the human family tree is a tough task. Most ancient human skeletons discovered are only fragmentary, but when Lucy’s […]
Lecture – Rewriting Modern Human Origins: Insights from New Discovery in Morocco by Shara Bailey Newly discovered Homo sapiens fossils in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, push back the origins of our species by 100,000 years. The fossils show that by about 300,000 years ago, important changes in our biology and behavior had taken place across most […]
Lecture – Timeline of the Universe by Carolyn Sumners The space-time continuum–the joining of two, once separate, concepts have allowed science to understand how the Universe works. Dr. Carolyn Sumners, HMNS VP of Astronomy, will explain our personal sense of time, Earth time, star time, and finally, cosmic time–including the time scale of the Big […]
Lecture – The Great Road Trip: New Stories in the Human Journey by John Kappelman The lure of what lies over the next horizon has always been a central part of our human quest. Dr. John Kappelman will present the latest research information on about our explorations–places, dates, and even genomic analysis–has helped to […]
In my years as a tour guide here at HMNS I encountered a lot of good questions. Most of the time the simplest questions were the best ones, like “what is a dinosaur?“. It’s a simple question but it has a complicated answer. For most people, the only prerequisite for being a dinosaur is being […]
Lecture – Evolution’s Bite: A Story of Teeth, Diet, and Human Origins by Peter Ungar Like living fossils teeth that can be studied and compared to those of our ancestors to teach us how we became human. Cutting-edge advances in understanding human evolution and climate change are leading to new approaches to uncovering […]
