American Museum Of Natural History Research Articles

“So if you’re going fossil hunting, that’s where you should look”

Abstract Whether directed at adults or children, popularization can be viewed as a process of “translating” and “recontextualizing” expert discourse for a lay audience. In fact, knowledge dissemination for children appears to entail an additional form of “translation,” given their limited background knowledge. This “re-translation” often occurs on dedicated websites based on “edutainment.” While most museum websites function as promotional tools or as agents of knowledge dissemination, a small number of them are targeted at children and offer texts that insert museum objects in a broader context. By means of a small case study, this paper explores how knowledge is popularized and presented in two science museum websites: the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London and OLogy, the science website for children of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. From a corpus-linguistic and discourse-analysis perspective, our interest lies in how popularization takes shape in these two websites, the former intended for different age groups and the latter explicitly addressing children. Quantitative and qualitative results show similarities and dissimilarities, thus accounting for different types of popularization as forms of translation. The analysis aims to grant insights to translators and interpreters engaged in museum adaptations and translation of contexts.

Marvette Pérez: A Visionary Smithsonian Curator

Details the career of Marvette Perez (1961–2013), the first Latina curator at the National Museum of American History. Essay emphasizes her curatorial accomplishments, focusing on her collecting practices including some of the larger and smaller acquisitions that she added to the national collections of the Smithsonian Institution. Large collections discussed include the Teodoro Collection of Puerto Rican History, the Goya Foods Inc. Collection, and the Celia Cruz Collection. Smaller collections mentioned include the Diosa Costello Collection, the Tito Puente Collection, the Mongo Santamaria Collection, and a collection of panos from New Mexico. Archival collections are also referenced such as the Clotilde Arias Collection, Latin Jazz Oral History Program, and the Puerto Rican Division of Community Education. Also mentioned is the prior history of Hispanic collecting in the museum conducted by curator Richard Ahlborn which focused on Spanish settlements in the southwestern United States.

1990s dinomania: Public and popular cultures of palaeontology from Jurassic Park to Friends

In the 1990s, the English-speaking world was swept up in a deluge of popular cultural content on palaeontology. Dinosaurs were featured in programming ranging from B-movie horrors to children's cartoon franchises to popular novels. In some ways, this widespread public interest in palaeontology was mirroring broader public and scientific conflicts such as the Alverez hypothesis, the ‘birds are dinosaurs’ debate, ownership rights over dinosaur fossils, intelligent design and creationism in schools, and major DNA sequencing projects. But in other ways, this popular culture material existed beyond these specific debates, and speaks to the ways that depictions of palaeontology fostered public understanding of science in this period. Perhaps no two depictions of palaeontology frame different, and in some ways conflicting, aspects of the field better than two of the biggest popular culture phenomena of the 1990s: Jurassic Park and Friends. Jurassic Park, for which we are approaching the 30th anniversary of its initial release, spawned two sequels within a decade, and three more since then. The heroes of the original movie were two palaeontologists, Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern). Friends, which aired 1994-2004, was certainly the most successful sitcom of the period and one of the most popular television shows of all time. One of the six main characters, Ross Geller (David Schwimmer), is a palaeontologist, who at the beginning of the series works for the American Museum of Natural History and by the show's conclusion, has received tenure at New York University. The depiction of palaeontology in these two programs could not be more different. Drs. Grant and Sattler are competent action heroes, whose expertise regarding dinosaur morphology and behaviour are central to both their survival and their identity. Notably, the filmmakers for Jurassic Park centred the science of palaeontology in its story, working close with palaeontologist Jack Horner. They were also helped by the fact that their source material, Michael Crichton's 1990 novel of the same name, closely engages with scientific ideas and ethics. For Ross Geller on the other hand, his career as a palaeontologist is only on the outskirts of the TV series. Viewers occasionally saw Ross in professional settings (the classroom, the museum, a conference, a fellowship interview), but are not provided with enough information to even determine what sort of research he even does. The focus is always on his personal life; his interest in dinosaurs is just one aspect of his personality, one that does not even get mentioned in many episodes. It thus offers an unusual representation of scientists and science as fully integrated into society and the lived experiences of non-scientists. The palaeoscience occurs off-screen as a facet of the character rather than their defining characteristic. In this article, the authors will situate Friends and Jurassic Park within the dinosaur-mania of the 1990s, while analysing the different versions of palaeontological study that they projected to the public. It will draw connections between how palaeontology was depicted on-screen to the major real-life debates and discoveries in the field at the same time.

Dental caries in living and extinct strepsirrhines with insights into diet.

Dental caries is one of the most common diseases afflicting modern humans and occurs in both living and extinct non-human primates, as well as other mammalian species. Compared to other primates, less is known about the etiology or frequency of caries among the Strepsirrhini. Given the link between caries and diet, caries frequency may be informative about the dietary ecology of a given animal. Understanding rates of caries in wild populations is also critical to assessing dental health in captive populations. Here, we examine caries frequency in a sample of 36 extant strepsirrhine species (n = 316 individuals) using odontological collections of wild-, non-captive animals housed at the American Museum of Natural History by counting the number of specimens characterized by the disease. Additionally, in the context of studying caries lesions in strepsirrhines, case studies were also conducted to test if similar lesions were found in their fossil relatives. In particular, two fossil strepsirrhine species were analyzed: the earliest Late Eocene Karanisia clarki, and the subfossil lemur Megaladapis madagascariensis. Our results suggest that caries affects 13.92% of the extant individuals we examined. The frugivorous and folivorous taxa were characterized by the highest overall frequency of caries, whereas the insectivores, gummivores, and omnivores had much lower caries frequencies. Our results suggest that caries may be common among wild populations of strepsirrhines, and in fact is more prevalent than in many catarrhines and platyrrhines. These findings have important implications for understanding caries, diet, and health in living and fossil taxa.

The Molina Family Latino Gallery: A PEAS Case Study

The Molina Family Latino Gallery: A PEAS Case Study

Species identification of ivory and bone museum objects using minimally invasive proteomics.

Ivory is a highly prized material in many cultures since it can be carved into intricate designs and have a highly polished surface. Due to its popularity, the animals from which ivory can be sourced are under threat of extinction. Identification of ivory species is not only important for CITES compliance, it can also provide information about the context in which a work was created. Here, we have developed a minimally invasive workflow to remove minimal amounts of material from precious objects and, using high-resolution mass spectrometry-based proteomics, identified the taxonomy of ivory and bone objects from The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection dating from as early as 4000 B.C. We built a proteomic database of underrepresented species based on exemplars from the American Museum of Natural History, and proposed alternative data analysis workflows for samples containing inconsistently preserved organic material. This application demonstrates extensive ivory species identification using proteomics to unlock sequence uncertainties, e.g., Leu/Ile discrimination.

Designing for diverse museum visitors’ identity exploration around inventiveness

IntroductionThis paper describes an initial phase of research to inform the design of Change YOUR Game—an exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (NMAH) that aims to promote visitors’ inventiveness in STEM and in other life domains. The exhibition’s content focused on the history of inventions and innovations in sports. The research was framed by the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) and by a set of design principles for promoting visitors’ agentic identity exploration: The PRESS Principles.MethodsFive data collection sessions engaged participants in a virtual, simulated visit to an early rendition of the exhibition. Diverse groups of participants were prompted to consider the self-relevance of the exhibition content to their identities and how they have been and can be inventive in their lives.ResultsFour themes captured participants’ museum visitor role identities, varied readiness to engage in identity exploration of their inventiveness, and how these provided affordances and hindrances to participants’ engagement in identity exploration in the context of the simulated visit. The themes served as bases for design recommendations.DiscussionThe study highlights the potential of the DSMRI and PRESS design principles to address conceptual and methodological challenges of research that aims to inform environmental design of a context that is not yet in existence and that will be relatively fixed. The findings suggest recommendations for design as well as theoretical insights about museum visitor role identities and the contexts that may promote visitors’ active and agentic engagement in exploring their identities.

Pachyderm Matriarchy

One of the essential backstories of Donna Haraway’s essay “Teddy Bear Patriarchy” is the biography of celebrated collector/taxidermist Carl Akeley, and his vision for the African Hall at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. The “Authors and Versions” section of Haraway’s essay examines expedition stories recorded by Carl Akeley, his first wife, Delia Denning Akeley, and his second, Mary Jobe Akeley, to interrogate the issue of authorship, and build a case for an alleged cover-up of Delia’s contributions by “the official scientific community”. The present article pursues a reading of “Authors and Versions” against a more robust historical background, including published sources, and primary archival materials, in order to deepen, and correct, the broader story of the authorship and intellectual labour behind the AMNH African Hall, in particular the purported suppression of Delia Akeley’s voice and labour.

Type specimens and type localities of birds (Aves) collected by Gustav Adolf Fischer (1848–1886) in East Africa

Gustav Adolf Fischer (1848–1886) was an important German naturalist and ornithological collector in Africa. The extensive ornithological collections from his several expeditions were sent to at least two different museums (Zoological Museum Berlin and Zoological Museum Hamburg), and to a smaller extent, some private sales are assumed. Together with Anton Reichenow, Fischer described many species new to science, so the many types in the collections make them especially important. We located 616 bird specimens in the collections of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and the Museum der Natur Hamburg along with a few further specimens in the collections of the Museum Heineanum Halberstadt, the Naturalis Biodiversity Center Leiden, The Natural History Museum-UK (Tring), the American Museum of Natural History, New York and the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. Among these, type specimens for 133 species and subspecies of birds were traced. For all of them, an update of the collecting localities with particular emphasis on some previously unknown locations is provided. A taxonomic update of the described species is given and a designation of lectotypes for the following four taxa was necessary: Francolinus Altumi G.A. Fischer & Reichenow, 1884, Accipiter minullus tropicalis Reichenow, 1898, Hypochera ultramarina var. orientalis Reichenow, 1894 and Spinus citrinelloides frontalis Reichenow, 1904b.  

The tracheal system of the Common Wasp (Vespula vulgaris) – A micro-CT study

X-ray micro-CT has been used to study the tracheal system of Pre and Post hibernation Queen wasps (Vespula vulgaris) and their workers. We have compared our findings in wasps with Snodgrass’s description of the tracheal system of the honeybee as characterised by anatomical dissection. Our images, whilst broadly similar, identify the tracheal system as being considerably more complex than previously suggested. One of the 30 wasps imaged had a markedly different, previously undescribed tracheal system. Since completing this study, a large micro-CT study from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) has been published. This used different software (Slicer) and analysed 16bit digital data. We have compared our methods with that described in the AMNH publication, adopted their suggested nomenclature and have made recommendations for future studies.

Safeguarding our dentistry heritage: a study of the history and conservation of nineteenth–twentieth century dentures

In the 1870s, dentures were one of the first products made with celluloid, the first semi-synthetic plastic. Despite the significance of denture development in the history of celluloid and plastics, the chemical characterization of dentures in museum collections has never been attempted. It is urgent to assess the extent of celluloid heritage in denture collections due to the high degradation risk that this material imposes. In this work, 21 dentures from the National Museum of American History and from the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry were characterized using a multi-analytical methodology using handheld Raman, X-Ray fluorescence, and micro-Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopies. All dentures were successfully characterized: 12 are made of celluloid, 4 of vulcanized rubber, 2 of phenol–formaldehyde, 2 of polyvinyl chloride—polyvinyl acetate copolymer (PVC-PVAc) and 1 of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). The identification of the dentures’ base materials allowed a better understanding of their history and posed new questions about their conservation. Handheld Raman was demonstrated as an excellent in-situ tool for the study of polymeric materials.

Proximity, wholeness, and animality: The case of Little Sorrel's repatriation

AbstractFrederic Webster, chief preparator at the Carnegie Museum (CM) from 1897 to 1907, is credited by some for “rescuing” Lion Attacking a Dromedary (LAD) from destruction by the American Museum of Natural History. Webster's work on LAD was not his only involvement with the preparation and display of controversial bones, however. Webster mounted the hide and bones of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson's war horse, Little Sorrel and displayed the skeleton at CM. In 1949, Little Sorrel's skeleton were returned to Virginia, where it was eventually cremated and interred under a statue of Jackson in a public ceremony in 1997. This article compares the return and reburial of the bones of a Confederate horse to the continued display of the remains of a person of unknown origin in LAD to highlight the very differing treatment of these human and equine individuals. By considering the return of Little Sorrel's remains to be a repatriation, I argue that the horse was transformed from a museum specimen into a monument, leveling him as a symbol of the Lost Cause and further cementing the status of the individual contained within LAD as a specimen. Through a displayed proximity to animals, Jackson (and his horse) become more human, while the person whose remains remain on display in LAD is treated as less than human.

A Resurgence of Cooperation between Scientists and Laypersons

After a long period during which the involvement of laypersons was considered undesirable in the Western tradition of science, we have recently witnessed numerous collaborations which suggest that the desirability of societal involvement in the scientific practice is becoming recognized. This article argues that the historical considerations that once led to this division in cognitive labour have been in transformation, having undergone diverse shifts. In a first instance, the exclusion of laypersons from science is analysed in terms of the key concepts of systematicity, universality, and authority. For that, two examples are given: the case of the British photographic survey and that of the American Museum of Natural History. Next, the dissolution of these barriers between scientists and laypersons is discussed and illustrated by examples: the Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa Research Association in Austria, Fukushima nuclear monitoring stations, and the French Association of Muscular Dystrophy. It is concluded that, for science to be truly democratized, co-produced knowledge needs to be integrated in political decision-making processes, which is currently still lacking. Furthermore, since expertise can also be found in society, non-certified experts should work in conjunction with scientists, yet at the same time, the divide between experts and non-experts must be maintained. The inclusion of non-scientific experts in decision-making is fundamentally different from the inclusion of lay stakeholders. Hence, different participatory roles should be expected from stakeholders, experts, or scientists, and the most important challenge now is how to formally define such roles.

The curious case of Central Park's dinosaurs: The destruction of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' Paleozoic Museum revisited

In May 1871, models and skeleton casts of dinosaurs and other ancient vertebrates destined for a new Paleozoic Museum in Central Park, New York were smashed and destroyed. This greatest act of vandalism in the history of dinosaur study and museum development was attributed to the infamous William ‘Boss’ Tweed, leader of a notorious group of rogue politicians who at the time held the reins of power in the booming city. Our research on primary sources shows that Tweed was not involved, and the real villain was Henry Hilton, a powerful lawyer and businessman. Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins had been employed to do the work and yet he was dismissed and not compensated, creating a scandal. Contrary to the generally accepted narrative of these events, we find no religious motive for the destruction, only potential conflict with the developing American Museum of Natural History. Further, based on well-reported evidence, we find that Hilton exhibited an eccentric and destructive approach to cultural artefacts, and a remarkable ability to destroy everything he touched, including the huge fortune of the department store tycoon Alexander Stewart. Evidently the destruction of Hawkins' New York City dinosaurs was one of many such crazy actions through his life; Hilton was not only bad, but also mad.

In memoriam: Eleanor Jane Sterling (1960–2023)

Over a lifetime of commitment to conservation, Eleanor Jane Sterling tirelessly dedicated her time, expertise, and brilliant mind to sustaining biodiversity and people's relationships with nature. Eleanor's work transcended disciplines and had a profound impact on biological and social sciences, field research, and community engagement and collaboration around the globe, with direct application to conservation action. She pioneered new ways of achieving just, equitable, and effective conservation, emphasizing the need to place Indigenous knowledge and cultural norms, traditions, and customs at the heart of conservation practice. Her passion for inclusive communication, education, and mentoring and her catalyzing role in collaborations among researchers, practitioners, and community members across the world have been instrumental in bridging ways of knowing. Her pioneering work on advancing biocultural approaches to biodiversity conservation, placing cultural concerns at the forefront of engagement with local actors, in particular in British Columbia, Hawaiˈi, and Solomon Islands, led to influential publications on well-being, the importance of connections between people and place, and how to integrate this new understanding into environmental policy tools and metrics, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Her outstanding efforts were recognized through her numerous awards and prestigious appointments, including the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) Distinguished Service Award (2013), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy inaugural Meritorious Research Award (2016), and most recently, the IUCN Fred M. Packard International Parks Merit Award (2023). Ever modest, Eleanor often preferred to highlight the contributions of her collaborators and colleagues rather than the success of her own endeavors. Active on the SCB board for many years, Eleanor placed a high priority on advancing more inclusive, equitable, and diverse conservation workplaces, professional societies, and networks. She was a founding member of the Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity (EID) Committee at SCB, and the committee itself was formed in direct response to activities she convened at SCB conferences and a paper she published with colleagues in this journal (Foster et al., 2014). Eleanor facilitated key initiatives at the highest levels of SCB based on high-impact and data-driven evaluation and training to inform the society's decisions and approaches related to diversity, equity, inclusivity, and belonging. The new governance structure and Vision 2026 of SCB reflect many of the tenets that Eleanor advocated tirelessly, including creating more localized, diverse, equitable, and distributed leadership and decision-making structures. Through these efforts, and throughout her life, Eleanor worked to better recognize her own privilege and leverage it to advocate for change and center those with less power in the spaces where change is made. Eleanor launched her career at Yale University, in a joint doctoral program between the Department of Anthropology and the School of the Environment. Her doctoral research focused on the ecology and behavior of the aye-aye, a reclusive nocturnal lemur that was once thought to be extinct. This research entailed following aye-ayes through the rainforest at night with a team of Malagasy research assistants on Nosy Mangabe, a small, uninhabited island in the Bay of Antongil. She went on to study the distribution patterns of biodiversity in tropical regions, leading behavioral and ecological studies of primates, whales, and sea turtles and of many other species in many different landscapes. She coauthored the monograph Vietnam: A Natural History, the first comprehensive natural history of Vietnam, and contributed to research on the ecosystem engineering of Galapagos tortoises. For more than 20 years, Eleanor was a generous and visionary leader at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), guiding and growing the conservation programs of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (CBC). She became well known as a science communicator and made powerful use of the museum's platform for public outreach through exhibits and events. Eleanor curated landmark traveling exhibits that advanced public understanding of the environment, including Water H20 = Life (November 2007 to May 2008), Our Global Kitchen (November 2012 to August 2013), and Yellowstone to Yukon (July 2006 to March 2007). She also spearheaded an influential, annual conservation symposium for over a decade and the Living with Nature series, a set of public events and freely available materials relating to everyday actions that citizens can take to reduce their impact on the environment. In 2022, Eleanor and her husband, Kevin Frey, moved to the island of Oahu, where Eleanor was the director of the University of Hawaiˈi at Mānoa Hawaiˈi Institute of Marine Biology. She was only in the position for a year, but her contributions to sustainable funding and strategic planning were instrumental to the long-term success of the institute, centering on place-based research and building relationships with the local community. Through affiliations with higher education institutions in New York, Hawaiˈi, and beyond, Eleanor contributed to the training and mentoring of (quite literally) thousands of emerging conservationists across the United States through direct supervision as a thesis sponsor, committee member, or professor and through the establishment of the Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners (NCEP). NCEP works to make conservation training and education more effective and accessible by developing teaching and learning materials and professional development programs. It has reached close to 5000 educators and practitioners in over 20 countries, increasing conservation capacity worldwide. Eleanor challenged our discipline to grapple with the complexity of conservation science as one that was prefaced on unacknowledged histories, subject to ongoing identity-based biases and riddled with unintended consequences. She advocated for a bolder transformative vision for the study and practice of conservation. She continued to recast her recommendations to create meaningful change as she deepened her appreciation of the ways systemic and structural forces affect conservation and broader society. Eleanor will be deeply missed by her colleagues and friends in conservation. Her extraordinary and creative mind, tireless and visionary efforts to broker collaboration and catalyze action, and advancement of equity and inclusion will continue to inspire us, always. Photo by Michael Appleton.

Review: Curating the American Past: A Memoir of a Quarter Century at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, by Pete Daniel

Book Review| May 01 2023 Review: Curating the American Past: A Memoir of a Quarter Century at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, by Pete Daniel Curating the American Past: A Memoir of a Quarter Century at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History by Pete Daniel. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2022. 260 pp.; 75 images; clothbound, $16.46; eBook, $13.17. Marla R. Miller Marla R. Miller University of Massachusetts Amherst Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The Public Historian (2023) 45 (2): 141–143. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2023.45.2.141 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Marla R. Miller; Review: Curating the American Past: A Memoir of a Quarter Century at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, by Pete Daniel. The Public Historian 1 May 2023; 45 (2): 141–143. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2023.45.2.141 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe Public Historian Search Pete Daniel is well known to many public historians as the first practicing museum professional to serve as president of the Organization of American Historians (2008–9; he also had been the first curator to serve in the same role for the Southern Historical Association, in 2005-6). By that time Daniel had spent more than twenty-five years as a curator at the National Museum of American History (NMAH), and so his election signaled for many a real sense of public history’s “arrival.” An award-winning historian of the rural south, Daniel has also authored several monographs on a wide range of subjects rooted in southern, labor, and agricultural history, including his powerful study Dispossession: Discrimination against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013). Curating the American Past is also a work of labor history—an account of tensions between bosses and workers, contexts... You do not currently have access to this content.

Assessment of targeted enrichment locus capture across time and museums using odonate specimens

Abstract The use of gDNAs isolated from museum specimens for high throughput sequencing, especially targeted sequencing in the context of phylogenetics, is a common practice. Yet, little understanding has been focused on comparing the quality of DNA and results of sequencing museum DNAs. Dragonflies and damselflies are ubiquitous in freshwater ecosystems and are commonly collected and preserved insects in museum collections hence their use in this study. However, the history of odonate preservation across time and museums has resulted in wide variability in the success of viable DNA extraction, necessitating an assessment of their usefulness in genetic studies. Using Anchored Hybrid Enrichment probes, we sequenced DNA from samples at 2 museums, 48 from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in NYC, USA and 46 from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center (RMNH) in Leiden, Netherlands ranging from global collection localities and across a 120-year time span. We recovered at least 4 loci out of an >1,000 locus probe set for all samples, with the average capture being ~385 loci (539 loci on average when a clade of ambiguous taxa omitted). Neither specimen age nor size was a good predictor of locus capture, but recapture rates differed significantly between museums. Samples from the AMNH had lower overall locus capture than the RMNH, perhaps due to differences in specimen storage over time.

A probable ornithopod egg from a historic collection of dinosaur eggs recovered from the Upper Cretaceous of Liaoning Province, China

ABSTRACT Since the first discovery of dinosaur eggs announced by the American Museum of Natural History (central Asiatic expeditions to Mongolia) in 1923, these fossils became widely recognised from Mesozoic strata in Asia and elsewhere. In the 1920s, and actually before 1923, dinosaur eggs had been collected from another part of Asia, specifically Liaoning Province in northeastern China. From 1921 to the late 1920s, five eggs were collected from the Cenomanian Quantou Formation during construction, and thus represent an important historic collection as some of the earliest dinosaur eggs discovered in Asia. Here, we describe one egg from this collection and assign it to Paraspheroolithus irenensis, an egg taxon that likely belonged to hadrosaur dinosaurs. The egg is approximately 7 × 8 cm in diameter, with eggshell that displays typical spheroolithid microstructure and is just over a millimetre in thickness. Paraspheroolithus irenensis is shown to be the most widespread spheroolithid oospecies in China, and our comparative work extends its geographic range to northeastern most China. The Quantou Formation thus has yielded at least three spheroolithid oospecies, indicating the potential for a diversity of hadrosaur or related ornithopod species in the region at that time.

Borrowing from Our Foremothers: Reexamining the Women's Movement through Material Culture, 1848–2017

In this astute and extensive study of the material culture of the American women's movement, Amy Helene Forss provides an essential overview of the history of US feminism wherein a series of fascinating artifacts takes center stage to connect that history. While Forss focuses on each artifact and its role within the movement, she often delves much deeper by addressing how the leadership of certain groups in the movement has long been underrepresented, such as that of African American women.Forss frames material-culture items of the women's movement such as cartes de visite, clothing, service pins, jewelry, gavels, torches, urns, and sculptures, along with published texts, programs, and banners within each era's campaigns, while presenting specific women's experiences in and of the movement. Historical research throughout Borrowing from Our Foremothers: Reexamining the Women's Movement through Material Culture, 1848–2017 is thorough and impressive, but the book is also strengthened by 99 oral histories that Forss conducted with such accomplished individuals as Ellen Broidy (gay rights activist and co-organizer of the first gay pride parade), Rosalynn Carter (former First Lady of the United States and an Equal Rights Amendment supporter and author), E. Faye Williams (lawyer, civic leader, and named one of the hundred most influential Black Americans by Ebony magazine), and Frances “Poppy” Northcutt (a NASA Apollo 8 engineer). As Forss outlines, these individuals, along with dozens of others, add their voices to the multi-layered narrative that is so inherent to the American women's movement.One of the artifacts revealed by Forss as a primal touchstone for this project is a charm bracelet that chronologically documents the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) ratification process that began in 1972. As part of the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, this charm bracelet (and several similar bracelets) once belonged to Alice Paul, foremother extraordinaire. Paul's leadership through the Washington, DC, chapter of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), helped secure the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, granting women the right to vote. In her time, Paul organized parades and pickets addressing and supporting women's suffrage, including a parade of over 8,000 women participants who marched with banners down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House on March 3, 1913, just one day before President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration.Though Paul eventually broke away from the NAWSA, she continued her efforts for women's rights by forming the National Woman's Party and authoring the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Paul marked the milestone of each state that approved the ERA with an enamel-state-shaped charm. Attaching each charm to a bracelet, Paul filled many bracelets that reveal a remarkable story and “an intriguing angle of historical contemplation” (p. 2), even though the ERA fell three states short of constitutional passage in 1982.Forss documents the captivating story of 30 unifying artifacts “pertaining to foremothers of diverse race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and gender identity” (p. 2). Of interest to many is the author's solid research on Black suffragists, who formed their own organization, the National Federation of Afro-American Women, out of extreme frustration with white suffrage organizational marginalization and disgust at newspaper editorials describing Black women as “thieves and lying prostitutes” (pp. 65–6). Sojourner Truth's carte de visite conveys to readers the essential role of African American women within the movement, and Marian Anderson's evening gown worn for a special concert helps readers understand how history defines an artifact, and in this case, the wearer of that artifact.Much controversy arose around contralto Anderson and her soon-to-be landmark, open-air performance at the Lincoln Memorial on April 9, 1939, when she entertained 75,000 people and many listeners via radio. Incredibly, a day or two ahead of the concert, Anderson had failed to reserve a hotel room in segregated Washington, DC. This spurred Gifford Pinchot, Theodore Roosevelt's former US Forest Service Chief—whom Forss misidentifies as a “former National Park Service Chief”—to offer his home to Anderson, her mother, and her sisters (p. 70). Deliberately performing specific music “during an event tinged with racism” (p. 71), Anderson became a symbol of the Black community, and her dress, in and of itself, also became part of the singer's iconic status within that community and the women's movement for all women.Forss engages readers with the immersive history and provenance of many contemporary artifacts—such as the Radical Lesbian “Lavender Menace” T-shirt, Reverend Pauli Murray's sculpted hand, Billie Jean King's tennis dress, and, most recently, the Pussyhat Project Manifesto—whose tangible and intangible histories represent the inclusivity of the women's movement well into the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Forss also provides insightful commentary on iconic items indicative of LGBTQ+ feminists, which demonstrates the author's skill as both scholar and storyteller.Scholars, researchers, and students of women's history, folklore, and material culture will not be disappointed by Forss’ inclusion of photographs for artifacts discussed, a helpful “cast of foremothers,” an appendix featuring speeches (particularly by Sojourner Truth), as well as extensive notes, a bibliography, and an index.There are few scholarly works that so profusely and precisely discuss the interconnection of artifacts surrounding the American women's movement as Forss does in Borrowing from Our Foremothers.

How and why we should move beyond natural selection in museums to tackle teleology

BackgroundMuseum displays commonly use a “VIST” approach (Variation, Inheritance, Selection, and Time) to explain evolution to visitors. I contend that this framework, by focusing narrowly on natural selection, unintentionally reinforces intuitive teleological thinking and a “survival of the fittest” mentality. Exhibits that incorporate all the forces (or mechanisms) of evolution will instead challenge visitors’ preconceptions and enable them to develop a deeper understanding of evolution. In particular, visitors will appreciate that evolution is not progressive, with modern humans as the “most evolved” species.ResultsExplicit and implicit description of the forces of evolution is surveyed in 12 museums: 4 in Texas, 7 elsewhere in the U.S., and the Natural History Museum in London. Museum exhibits focus primarily on natural selection (explicit in 10 of 12) and often mention mutation (explicit in 7). Only the American Museum of Natural History in New York, in my sample, provides an explicit explanation of genetic drift.ConclusionsHeavy emphasis on natural selection and limited explanation of stochastic forces contributes to an impoverished view of evolution. Exhibits should more effectively convey the complexity of microevolution. Computer simulations showing the interactions of evolutionary forces can accomplish this goal.