Quiet for months during the winter and early spring, the world of invertebrates—including insects—is bursting to life as the weather warms. But this year, as you’ve probably heard, brings a rare…treat: billions of cicadas, all along the Eastern seaboard, including New York.

Last fall, the Museum’s educational staff brought geocaching to YouthCaN, an international, youth-led organization that was founded together with iEARN at the Museum and uses technology to inspire, connect, and educate people worldwide about environmental issues.

This Thursday, May 16, in an American Museum of Natural History Adventure in the Global Kitchen program, Timothy Sullivan, of urbansake.com, will share behind-the-scenes details about how sake, sometimes called the “drink of the gods,” is brewed each winter in the Niigata Prefecture of Japan.

Join Curator of North American Ethnology Peter Whiteley as he leads a video tour of the Museum's Pacific Northwest Coast collections, which includes a giant Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw whale mask, pictured above left.

Project scientist John Grotzinger, recently featured in The New Yorker, appears tonight at the Museum to discuss the Curiosity mission on Mars, slated to last for one Martian year (23 Earth months).