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, […]
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 […]
The earth is 4.54 billion years old. That’s a big number to wrap your head around. Spending time among very old things helps, but even then it’s easy to forget that not only the fossils themselves are ancient; so is the rock they came out of, the planet circling a sun that has been around […]
by James Talmage, Scout Programs After more than a year of hard work, Girl Scouts Heidi Tamm, Zoe Kass, and others completed the entire Scouts@HMNS Careers in Science instructional series, earning each scout a total of seven badges. Careers in Science is the Scouts@HMNS series of classes for Girl Scouts that aims to introduce girls to different […]
Congregationalist Minister, Director of the Massachusetts Geological Survey, and First to Prove that Dinosaurs Had Feathers. Part Two: U-boats and the Knuckle Decipherment.(Read Part One Here) Ferocious Flat-foots frighten second grader. A cartoon from Punch 1855 shows three dinosaurs restored at the Crystal Palace as big-shouldered and flat-footed. Supposedly kids were dragged kicking and screaming […]
After a 2 year absence, “Dipsy” the Diplodocus is back at HMNS! Making it’s debut back in 1975, Dipsy was the first dinosaur to call HMNS home. In 2013, our Diplodocus was de-installed from its original place in the Glassell Hall and sent off for a much needed spa retreat in Utah. While there, the […]
For those of you who have been going to HMNS for years, you may have noticed that we’ve been missing a rather large lady from our Hall of Paleontology. Our Diplodocus, “Dipsy”, was Houston’s first dinosaur unveiled in 1975 and she was de-installed in September 2013. This was her first trip from home for a […]
Editor’s Note: This post is the first in a series featuring influential women from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields in the lead up to HMNS’ annual GEMS (Girls Exploring Math and Science) event, February 21, 2015. Click here to get involved! In the early 1800s, discoveries made by Mary Anning greatly expanded the field of paleontology […]
OMG I was such a dino-geek in college. I had other interests — I was enraptured by sculpture and took the fabled freshman History of Art course. The collage shown here was taped together during the lectures on the Renaissance renewal of anatomically correct human form made famous by Greek sculptors. Last month, I found the […]
Question: Why does T. rex have such a big tail? Answer: The tail is a counterbalance, so the body doesn’t come crashing down. Everyone knows this is the right answer. All the books in the volunteer library say so. We’ve been telling kids this since 1907 (or thereabouts). You can do an experiment. Go to […]
