The Hall of Human Life: 2013 Exhibit to turn Museum of Science Visitors into Museum Scientists.

Humans are Changing

See these concept drawings in the Museum's "Then and Now" exhibit.

Have you ever wondered whether or not your metabolism is genetic? Is your gait more characteristic of your age or gender? Have you ever considered the effects of your diet or the diets of your ancestors on your body’s ability to digest milk?

Under the theme “humans are changing,” an upcoming Museum of Science exhibit, the Hall of Human Life (HHL), will encourage visitors to consider the answers to all of these questions. The exhibit will explore through these and other questions how visitors’ physical environments are affecting their bodies, how their environment itself is changing, and how they are changing their environment.

Consider, for example, how the foods you are buying today will be reflected in changes in your body tomorrow, and how, in turn those changes will affect what you will be able to buy.

Brittany Jeye, a Program Presenter at the Museum of Science explains the participatory concept behind the developing exhibit:

“You can get a wrist bracelet that scans info you provide, and tracks what you do at different activities. Then you can compare yourself to others who have done the same activity.”

This format incorporates Museum guests into the exhibit, asking them to be both a participant and a researcher in order to gain a new perspective about themselves and the human species as a whole. This perspective is much needed in light of the rapid changes that medical fields have been experiencing.

Miriam Ledley, coordinator of Cahners Computer Place, explains the importance of the dialogue surrounding HHL exploration in relation to these changes:

“Now, people are being treated at the molecular and genetic level and most don’t realize that. This exhibit will try to bridge the gap between what people know about medical treatment and how they are actually being treated.”

The Vitruvian Man

Proclaiming it’s self to be, “no ordinary exhibit about human health and biology,” the Hall of Human Life will indeed explore questions about the body, not through the abstracted biological ideal represented by da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, but through virtual media and the data that visitors collect about themselves.

The data should prompt visitors to consider their own body in relation to that biology, as well as to changes that have since complicated that biological ideal. 


Instead of probing through models of idealized physical anatomy, they’ll be manipulating data that they participated in collecting and forming their own hypotheses about why we are the way we are.

The virtual nature of this participation gives the information collected both local and global implications. “As someone studying biology and psychology,” Jeye says, “I want to see what other people are like and how I compare or am different. Since it’s all virtual, one day we might be able to compare what we do to what people do in other parts of the world.” Should these exhibits become popularized, the database that visitors and museum experts have available to them could potentially grow to represent the global population.

Museums are Changing

Just as humans are changing, so too are museums. The Hall of Human Life is just one of many exhibits to break the Museum of Science even further out of the glass case and “Don’t Touch” philosophy that was once the rule in exhibit formatting.

Miriam Ledley, coordinator of Cahners Computer Place (CCP), another of the Museum’s exhibits, is excited by the change that the HHL represents, a change that will be seen throughout the Museum over the next few years.

“We’re trying to reshape the Museum so that it tells a story about the natural world, the designed world, and how they intersect.”

After the HHL new exhibits such as “What is Technology?” will be the next step in facilitating the telling of this story. Look out for press releases and new information about this transformation.

Contributing to the Change

Fortunately, you don’t have to wait until 2013 to begin experimenting. It is currently possible to contribute to the development of the new exhibit when you visit the Museum of Science’s Human Body Connection (HBC). The HBC is currently home to the Hall of Human Life Exhibit Laboratory, and a prototype of an upcoming HHL activity.

Here, Museum visitors explore the question, “Why do people have different abilities to balance?” Visitors may play a game in which they can move a ball through a virtual maze by shifting their weight on a footpad. Following the game, they compare the time it took them to complete the maze to the times of visitors with differing genders and ages.

A visitor attempts a balancing task being prototyped for the upcoming exhibit. 

How long would it take you? What gender or age group do you think would perform the task most quickly? Go to the Museum of Science and find out.

Fun Theory

Check out this and other "fun theory" videos. Which experiments provide the best evidence that making a behavior fun will increase the likelihood of an individual to engage in that behavior? Which experiments show that the "fun option" is just more fun?

Scientific American: "What Science Lovers Link to Most"

One scientist (at the request of Scientific American) tracked the successive links of viewers to 600 science web pages and found these connections between topics.

Click on the photo to read the original article and to see the full interactive web.

Thank Science for 5-year-olds

Today I learned that of the contingent United States, Arkansas has the best quality ants. Apparently the "lemon-limey" flavor their black ants posses makes them incredibly savory. However, my source did admit that he hasn't had the opportunity to sample our native Massachusetts ants yet.

Technical Tats

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." - Albert Einstein

Click the photo to check out tattoos featured in the New York Times.

"Science Ink," recently published by Carl Zimmer is a collection of the science inspired art that experts and novices alike have affixed to their bodies.

Having considered such a tattoo myself (perhaps with an insect theme?) I was really drawn to the colorful images I found among various periodicals and on Zimmer's own blog (see photo links and links below).

What I liked most, however, was what some of the people had to say about the inspiration for their body art. Though many explanations involved frustrating graduate school stories, many tattoos (like the DNA Monster, Preserving a Moth, or Calvin and the Cosmos) in combination with their stories describe the connection with science that I've struggled to articulate in past posts.

Click the photo to check out tattoos featured in Popular Science

Tattoos of Darwin's finches (above) and early mechanical planetarium designs (right) demonstrate not only the kind of art that Science can inspire, but the beauty that already exists within science, like the illusion of destiny in the theory of natural selection and the geometrical precision that accompanies technical drawings.
But they also exemplify the necessity for art in scientific pursuits. After all, where would evolution be if Darwin couldn't draw?

Don't feel like buying his book?
Check out Carl Zimmer's "Science Tattoo Emporium" on his blog "The Loom."

For my artistic sister, who does, and my many other friends, who do not share my love of hard science.

Dear Russia, Thanks for reading.

So, I've been monitoring my blog stats and apparently about half of my consistent readers are Russian. 

In the vacuum of my own community it's been easy to forget the potentially global reach of my rather local little project. It's strange to think that there are people on the other side of the world who might be interested in my blog (or maybe who just happen to stumble upon it).

Anyway, thanks Russian readers. This past month you've outnumbered my American friends. Privet!
 

Check out your own stats and post anything interesting you find as a comment on this post. If we can get enough info I'll follow it up with another post.

In general you should be able to reach the "Stats" tab from the same page where you edit your posts. Along the top of the page, right under the title of your blog, there should be different tabs. The last one on the right should say "Stats.

or

You can also click a link to view those statistics directly from your dashboard. From there you should be able to see your profile and a list of the blogs you edit. Underneath the title of your blog is a BIG BLUE button (orange in updated view) that says "New Post" but there are also buttons like "Design" and, wait for it... "Stats!!!" (If you have the updated blogger interface then instead of tabs you have a notebook icon with a drop-down menu.)

When predicting the end of the world gets you a prize in mathematics

This past September's Ig Nobel Prize winners included not one, but six people who believed they knew when the end was coming. Sadly, though perhaps not surprisingly, four of the six were fellow US citizens, among them Harold Camping, who recently corrected his original prediction, September 6th 1994 to October 21st 2011. Nice try Harry.

On the 29th, he and fellow fortune tellers were recognized with an Ig for "teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations." But what do you expect from a ceremony that keeps speeches appropriately lengthed by employing an 8-year-old girl, uses a human spotlight, and begins with a sword swallowing demonstration?

Not everything about the Igs is all fun and games, however. The qualifications for nominations are that a nominees research be first, humorous, but secondly, thought provoking. So, while certain awards lean more toward the laughable end of the spectrum, there are yet others that provoke a more ponderance than laughter.

Past nominees have included Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris who won the Psychology Prize in 2004 for demonstrating one way in which selective attention influences memory using a gorilla suit and a video. See if you can count the passes that players in white shirts make or figure out how this card trick is done. Simons's and Chabris's research, in addition to winning them an Ig, is now featured in many psychology text books.

 Check out the ceremony, or parts of it, on youtube:

Other notable winners this year:

Arturas Zuokas - Peace Prize for preventing illegal parking with tanks.

Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz - Biology Prize for "discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle."

Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami - Chemistry Prize "for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm."

check out the full list of winners.

A recent article in Nature titled "Tooth Chemistry Reveals Sauropod Sojourns," describes the research of Henry Fircke and colleagues, who have found evidence that dinosaurs like Apatasaurus followed migratory patterns.

A few sauropod species scaled in relation to a human being.

Erectus vs. Sapien

Homo erectus skull cast.

With the obvious exception of members of certain religious groups, I think we can all agree that homo erectus and homo sapien (that'd be us) are related. But where are we in relation to homo erectus on the  wonderful family tree of human evolution? Are we great-great-great-grand babies? Cousins? Second-cousins three times removed? Fifth-cousin's abusive ex-husband's son-in-laws?

To get an idea of how difficult that is to figure out, let's think about that whole family tree thing literally. Imagine that tree has been broken up, scattered about, worn away, and buried in the ground for about 7 million years and now it's your job to put the pieces back together. Not so easy.

In fact, when Eugene Dubois discovered the first fossil of homo erectus in 1891, nicknamed Java Man, there was some controversy over whether or not it was even part of the same genus (homo, that is). Though there is still some debate over what fossils fall under the erectus species, it is now considered to be among the widest spread and longest lived species (see the long red stripe in the photo below). That's a lot of success for an extinct animal.

 

Click on the photo to check out this interactive timeline on the Smithsonian website. Red bars indicate different homo species and the time in which they lived.

How they are related to modern humans remains unclear. While some argue that homo erectus should be lumped in with our ancestors homo ergaster, others think that the species was part of an entirely different and now extinct branch.



A few extra notes on evolution:

We did NOT evolve from monekys!
On a weekly basis I have the privilege of listening to parents tell their children that they evolved from chimpanzees. This is NOT TRUE. While I strongly encourage parents to talk to their children about things like this (kids are smart and curious), if you would like to explain evolution try, "we evolved from animals that looked like monkeys," or "people and monkey's have the same great great great grandparents." Please! don't simplify a concept for your child (or unaware friend) using blatantly false information. You will just confuse them.


We also did NOT evolve from neanderthals. 
If that surprises you, I sympathize.  Neanderthals and modern humans are both part of the genus homo and share an ancestor, homo ergaster. However, that branch of the human family died off with the neanderthal. 

If you are still curious about human ancestry check out "How did humans develop?" in Popular Science. Though a little lengthy, this article provides a readable description of some crucial fossil findings and describes some traditional and modern analysis techniques. On page 3 it provides some background information regarding the initial controversy that surrounded the discovery of the first homo erectus fossil by Eugene Dubois.

I Spy: Revealed

*more info coming! this post is waiting on a document to verify some awesome new content!*

Dear not so frequent visitors,

Over the past week "I Think Therefore I Science" (ITTIS) has been posting photos of a mystery science object. If you haven't been keeping up and you'd still like to try and have a guess:

Check out "I Spy..." and "I Spy: Welcome to 'Heaven'?" for a few hints to help you figure it out on your own.
Or skip it, and see the answer, which is:

It's the Van de Graff generator! "What's that?" you say? It's the big machine at the Museum of Science, Boston that shoots lightning bolts.

Let's start at the bottom:



Britt: demonstrating the relative size of the lower frame



Before you ascend the yellow ladder (seen in "I Spy") to the dome of the VDG (Van de Graff generator) you pass through here. Typically, enormous cylinders would span the length of the frame over Britt's head carrying large rubber belts. When the generator is running, these belts carry a charge from the base of the machine up the hollow neck to...



Greg: inspecting bolts on the upper frame


... here:
Insulated by the surrounding air and the concrete of the dome's columns, the potential of the seperated charge builds up until it is realeased from....



...that!



The Museum of Science's Van de Graff generator in the Theatre of Electricty (ToE)

 
If you've never experienced a Museum of Science Lightning Show before here's a taste:

Some fun facts about the van de graff generator at the museum of science:
- It is the largest of it's kind in the world.
- This Van de Graff generator was built by Mr. Van de Graff.

* A note: These photos were taken while cleaning and maintenance was taking place. The two photos shown here of the inside of the machine do not show it totally assembled. Typically large cylinders span the length of the frame that Greg is inspecting and the one above Britt's head. These cylinders rotate the belts that span through the neck of right dome's support. The left support is where the ladder is allowing access to the domes.

Don't like my blog?

... Well, don't hate science!

Check out some of the links on the right under "Science Cites and Science Sites." Read articles from famous science periodicals or search for a blog on a science topic more specific to your interests. Hopefully someone else's take will suit your learning style if mine doesn't.

I Spy: Welcome to "Heaven?" ...

.... or, "that dome thingy"? or wherever you were hoping that ladder was leading.

Was it what you thought it was? Any new guesses, before I actually tell you?
If you haven't, check out the September post "I spy..." for another clue, or move on to "I Spy: Revealed" in October for the answer.

A Bronto-who?

A lot has changed with dinosaurs since I was a kid. Today, I figured we'd get the bad news out of the way.

For those of you who aren't up to date:

Brontosaurus no longer exists.

I'm sorry if "The Land Before Time" was your favorite movie as a kid (it might have been mine), and if the endearing journey of "little-foot" inspired your parents to teach you something that is no longer true.

To those of you who did know: yes, I am aware that this is slightly old news (like, before-I-was-born old news), but people keep asking me if I knew that Brontosaurus was really just grown-up Apatosaurus, so I figured I would help everyone get on the same page here.

The Apatosaurus: This dinosaur and many of its relatives actually carried their  necks at an angle closer to horizontal. I mean, sticking your nose in the air all the time is exhausting. Try it.*

To sum up the situation:

A not very thorough paleontologist found a baby dinosaur and named it Apatosaurus. Then, he found a grown up of the same species (minus the skull) and named it Brontosaurus. Then, he found the head of a different dinosaur and stuck it on the "Brontosaurus." About ten years later another scientist noticed, and about 80 years after that the world started to catch on.

There's an awesome article in the unmuseum (a website) about it. http://www.unmuseum.org/dinobront.htm

In conclusion, don't let spell check tell you that "Apatosaurus" is misspelled and should be "Brontosaurus" (like it's been telling me for the past hour) because that's wrong.

*This image taken from the Encyclopedia Britannica

Now, wait just one second for

a note about myself...

Sometimes I pretend I'm still a kid. But, not in a creepy-fetish way, and not in a psychotic, or a can't-grow-up way. I am capable of being a mature adult, paying my bills, taking responsibility, being boring...

What I mean is, sometimes I do those things that, when I was a kid, I promised myself I would not get too old and crabby to do. Sometimes I climb trees; sometimes I play with crabs. Sometimes, I blow bubbles in my chocolate milk.

Which is probably why I like working with children so much. It turns out that five-year-old girls don't see a problem with wearing an astronaut costume every day of the week, that three-year-old boys are a-okay with everything being about dinosaurs. It just so happens, that it's ok to use an ostrich's bones to build a 6-legged, saber-tooth tiger. It's ok to enjoy making colorful coffee-filter butterflies. It's ok to not know where your finger prints are and, IT IS O-K TO ASK QUESTIONS.

... followed by a point of clarification:

So, when I talk about the disconnect between scientific language and the general public, I'm not trying to point out that people don't know about science. And, I don't want you to think of this as another "for dummies" info source.

What I would like to point out here, is that science is not disconnected from every day life, and that there is a way of talking about it that reflects that, that doesn't dangle it in front of you at arms length. And that this is the most pertinent way to talk about it.

I Spy...

See if you can work this one out:

If you've been to Boston, then you've probably heard of, if not seen this famous scientific landmark. However, you've probably never seen it form this angle.

Guess what it is! or check the October post "I Spy: Welcome to "Heaven"?" for another clue.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia

No, it does not refer to the fear of monstrous hippos. Tragically, hippopotomostrosesquipedliophobi refers to the fear of long words.

But why start a blog about science with a quip about vocabulary expansion? Well, while I myself realize that science is a fascinating lens through which to see the world, and an amazing tool for uncovering answers to basically any question you could possibly have, not to mention, pretty fucking cool, I do realize that others might not share my “hard-on for science,” as a friend politely put it.

I can only imagine that this is due, at least in part, to the unique vocabulary that so many professionals build up around their studies. Because a good deal of science involves studying things encountered nowhere else, a good deal of talking about science involves devising new terminology to differentiate between the anatomy of different species, or say, to distinguish planets from asteroids, from… other orbiting things.

The point is, by using terminology that people cannot easily understand, scientists create a barrier between themselves and their audiences. Nobody really wants to hear about the chemical properties of borax. Nor do most people care about the lifecycle of the honeybee, the habitats of extremophiles or the degree that changes in atmospheric density affect sound waves. And they especially don't want to hear about it when you have to learn what amounts to a new language in order to figure out what the fuck people are trying to tell you.

In any case, I promise not to speak in other languages or to scare you off with titles like "Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia" ever again.