The extinction of the Neanderthals nearly 30,000 years ago during the last ice age is one of the great puzzles of human evolution—and one that middle school students can tackle with the help of 3-D digital animation in a Museum program this summer.

With countless restaurants and food markets, New Yorkers may have a more effortlessly sophisticated palate than ever, but do they really have a nuanced understanding of the global forces that shape the politics and economics of food?  “The world of food is rife with paradox,” says Frederick Kaufman. Kaufman, a noted journalist and professor, will join a lively Museum panel about the global, technological, and financial future of food on Tuesday, March 5, at 6:30 pm.

By far the largest and oldest group in the order Lepidoptera, moths are usually overshadowed by their flashier cousins, the butterflies. But they are finally getting their due in Winged Tapestries: Moths at Large, a photo exhibition now open at the Museum.

This month, a team of international researchers led by the American Museum of Natural History and Stony Brook University determined in unprecedented detail what the earliest ancestor of placental mammals—the widely diverse group of animals ranging from whales to bats to humans—looked like.  The Museum is teaming up with WNYC’s Radiolab to sponsor a tournament to name this early ancestor. Want to enter? 

Rising nearly 11,000 feet above sea level on the Mediterranean island of Sicily, Mt. Etna is one of the largest, most active volcanoes in the world, producing at least one eruption a year. The volcano's first lava flows of 2013 came this week, on February 19 and 20. Find out how researchers monitor and forecast the location and time of Mt. Etna's activity in this Science Bulletins video.