Museums
The California Surf Museum
Learn about the evolution of the surfboard from 1912 through 2008 in this small gallery in Oceanside, California
June 2011 |
By Rodes Fishburne
The Museum of Jurassic Technology
A throwback to the private museums of earlier centuries, this Los Angeles spot has a true hodgepodge of natural history artifacts
June 2011 |
By Tony Perrottet
The Offbeat Museums of Europe
Lost souls, music boxes and shoes fill some of the continent's most peculiar collections
May 17, 2011 |
By Tony Perrottet
London Goes Back to the Age of the Dinosaur
Hot on the heels of the American Museum of Natural History's new "World's Largest Dinosaurs" exhibit, London's Natural History Museum has just launched its own dinosaur spectacular
May 13, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
A Delayed Tyrannosaurus Showdown
In 1913, paleontologists at the American Museum of Natural History made plans for what would have been a spectacular reconstruction of a prehistoric battle. Too bad that their plans did not come to fruition.Tyrannosaurus rex—the most celebrated dinosaur of all time—made its debut at the AMNH. The f...
May 11, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
The Dinosaurs of Twitter
Non-avian dinosaurs have been extinct for about 65 million years, but that has not stopped them from showing up on Twitter. Several dinosaurs have been making the most of the social media platform. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History doesn't have one yet—I would personally love to he...
May 04, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Blog Carnival #31: Ancient Earth, World's Oldest ToothAche, Pot-Bellied Dinos and More
Thirty Earths: ArtEvolved points us to this remarkable set of images depicting the changing physical appearance of the Earth over the last 750 million years. The thirty visual reconstructions were recently released by the Planetary Habitability Laboratory of the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo...
April 29, 2011 |
By Mark Strauss
Why the MoMA Should Have Dinosaurs
The Museum of Modern Art needs dinosaurs. That was the conclusion of one young visitor named Annabelle after she failed to find any dinosaurs at the MoMA. "ou call your self a museum!" she chided on a comment cards, and her brief critique has been popping up all over the web this week.Not everyone ...
April 26, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
A Michigan Museum of Shipwrecks
On the shore of Lake Superior, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum details the history of boats lost in the deep waters
April 21, 2011 |
By Arcynta Ali Childs
Creating an Allosaurus Feast
I feel a little sorry that I said Allosaurus had one of the dullest names in paleontology yesterday. It's not the dinosaur's fault that Othniel Charles Marsh gave it the unimaginative title of "different reptile." Had Marsh seen the complete skeleton when he coined the name, perhaps he would have ...
March 23, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Were You Inspired by a Dinosaur?
About two weeks ago I visited the American Museum of Natural History for a preview of their upcoming dinosaur exhibit. The chance to visit the dinosaur halls—and the collections!—after dark was an opportunity I did not want to miss, especially since my first visit to the museum, in the late 1980s, ...
March 15, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: A Flying Ankylosaur
Have you ever seen an Ankylosaurus fly? Stout and covered in heavy armor, ankylosaurs were arguably the least aerodynamic of all dinosaurs, but two months ago the Houston Museum of Natural Science treated onlookers to such a sight as they lifted their ankylosaur sculpture out of its old exhibit.The...
March 14, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
An Early Preview of AMNH's "World's Largest Dinosaurs" Exhibit
Many years ago, before the major renovation of the dinosaur halls, my parents took me to see the dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). I will never forget that visit. Standing below the skeleton of the immense "Brontosaurus," I imagined what the animal would have looked like w...
March 08, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaurs Soon to Return to L.A. Museum
Slowly but surely, museums across the United States are updating their dinosaur exhibits. The state of dinosaur science is changing so rapidly that even exhibits renovated in the 1990s are at least partially outdated, and I am thrilled to see so many institutions incorporating the latest science i...
March 03, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
St. George Gets a Scelidosaurus
Go to the dinosaur hall of almost any major natural history museum, and you are likely to find the same creatures. Diplodocus, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus... I have seen these dinosaurs over and over again, but there are hundreds and hundreds of dinosaur species that I have...
February 10, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
The Rediscovery of Gordo the Barosaurus
Stretching 90 feet long in life, Barosaurus was one of the largest of all dinosaurs. Despite its size, however, this sauropod was able to hide in the collections of the Royal Ontario Museum for over four decades.Barosaurus were rare dinosaurs. One of the few skeletons ever found was uncovered by p...
February 02, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
SVP Dispatch, Part 4: Night at the Carnegie Museum
The 70th annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting ended on Wednesday, but before returning to more regular coverage of all things dinosaur I wanted to share a few snapshots from the meeting's welcome reception in Pittsburgh's famous Carnegie Museum of Natural History.For more on SVP, see t...
October 15, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Are You Ready For National Fossil Day?
It's almost here: next week, on October 13, national parks around the country will celebrate the first annual National Fossil Day. A tribute to America's fossil riches from Florida to Alaska, the National Park Service will be running a series of events and special programs to educate the public abo...
October 05, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Jim Gary's Vehicular Dinosaurs
Whenever I pass construction sites, I sometimes imagine that some of the heavy, earth-moving machines are mechanical dinosaurs. Big, loud, and powerful, they fit the caricature of dinosaurs as bellowing monsters from my childhood, but the late sculptor Jim Gary actually went a step beyond seeing ve...
August 18, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Twenty Years of Tyrannosaurus Sue
Twenty years ago today, fossil hunter Sue Hendrickson discovered the dinosaur that now bears her name—the immense, 80 percent complete Tyrannosaurus rex called Sue. Arguably the most famous representative of the superstar of the dinosaur world, Sue is one of the most fantastic fossil discoveries ev...
August 12, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
