Human languages first appeared between 30,000 and 100,000 years ago, but the question of how languages spread and evolve is still under investigation. In this podcast from a recent SciCafe, join Museum curators Peter Whiteley and Ward Wheeler as they discuss how techniques used in genetic analysis are being applied to anthropology, language shifts, and key patterns in social evolution.

Meteorites that fell from an asteroid impact that lit up the skies over California and Nevada in April are showing scientists just how complex an asteroid surface can be. A new study published in Science this week by an international research team, including scientists from the Museum, reports that this space rock is an unusual example from a rare group known as carbonaceous chondrites, which contain some of the oldest material in the solar system.

This holiday week and next (December 20-December 31), learn more about how to make gingerbread houses at the working kitchen in the Museum's new exhibition, Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture.

Creatures of Light: Nature's Bioluminescence, a special exhibition open through January 6, inspired producers at OLogy, the Museum's science website for kids, to record a new version of a song, called "Glowing in the Ocean," for an animated video about bioluminescence. Watch a behind-the-scenes video.

A multi-video series about the restoration of the dioramas in the Jill and Lewis Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals, now on amnh.tv and on the Museum's YouTube channel, documents their renovation. In this post, the second in a series, we share one of the videos, which explains how Museum conservators re-created a lifelike butterfly for the coyote diorama.