Picturing Science, currently on view in the Akeley Gallery, tells the story of Museum research through spectacular large-format images. Photographs range from multicolored meteorite montages to CT scans of shark skulls, showcasing the importance of visual tools in each of the Museum’s research departments as well as the fusion of science and art.
The winners were announced on May 1, 2012, and will be honored at the 16th annual awards broadcast live from New York City on May 21.
Picturing Science, currently on view in the Akeley Gallery, tells the story of Museum research through spectacular large-format images. Photographs range from multicolored meteorite montages to CT scans of shark skulls, showcasing the importance of visual tools in each of the Museum’s research departments as well as the fusion of science and art.
Months before the opening of Creatures of Lighton March 31, a team of preparators at the Museum began developing custom models of glowing organisms that light up the exhibition. Director of Exhibition Design Michael Meister and other members of the Exhibition Department share how they conduct visual research for these unique models, work with curators to make them scientifically accurate, and meet the various lighting challenges of creating an exhibition about bioluminescence.
Click here find out more about Creatures of Light and to buy tickets to the exhibition.
An unforgettable trip from Earth to the edge of known space and back, the American Museum of Natural History’s The Known Universe has hit 10 million views on YouTube. Viewers from Australia to India to Alaska have tuned in to watch the video, which uses the Digital Universe Atlas, a scientifically accurate four-dimensional map of the cosmos maintained by Museum astrophysicists, to show the vastness of the universe. The Known Universe was created by the Museum in late 2009 as part of an exhibit for the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.
Live flashlight fishes can be seen in Creatures of Light, opening March 31. Courtesy of John Sparks
Curator John Sparks is blogging weekly about the upcoming exhibition, Creatures of Light, which opens on Saturday, March 31. This week, he invited Zach Baldwin, a Ph.D. student at the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School who works in the Department of Ichthyology and who consulted on the exhibition, to contribute the guest post below.
A common misconception about bioluminescent fishes is that they all live in the perpetual darkness of the deep sea. In truth, one of the most fascinating aspects of bioluminescence is the diversity of organisms and environments in which the phenomenon is known to occur. There are bioluminescent fishes occurring on coral reefs, in estuaries, and even in the rocky intertidal zone along coastlines. Approximately 100 species in nine families of fishes that live in shallow marine waters are known to luminesce. Read more »
