Finding Leeches in Rwanda

Friday, August 28 5:25 pm

In 1909 the American Museum of Natural History’s Herbert Lang and James Chapin embarked on a scientific expedition to the northeastern Belgian Congo. Their trip would ultimately last five and a half years yielding significant zoological and anthropological findings for the museum.

Exactly 100 years later another museum scientist, Dr. Mark Siddall, embarked on an expedition to the neighboring Rwanda. As a curator of invertebrate zoology he travelled to Rwanda in search of leeches — an animal that Lang and Chapin brought back amongst their original findings. Siddall’s research focuses on various aspects of leeches including the compound allowing them to stop blood from clotting and their DNA. In total he collected five distinct species of leeches on this latest trip.

Watch as Siddall traverses Rwanda’s rugged landscape and interacts with the local population in search of the curious blood sucking creatures.

Directing ‘Journey to the Stars’

Thursday, August 06 3:11 pm

Featuring extraordinary images from telescopes on the ground and in space and stunning, never-before-seen visualizations of physics-based simulations, the dazzling new Journey to the Stars launches visitors through space and time to experience the life and death of the stars in our night sky, including our own nurturing Sun.

Hear from Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History, as he describes the creative process behind this immersive theater experience. Journey to the Stars, narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Whoopi Goldberg, premiered on Saturday, July 4, 2009, in the Hayden Planetarium at the Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space.