As a palynologist, I study microscopic fossil spores and pollen that were produced by plants for reproduction. Pollen is highly important to the future of every plant and is made of an incredibly resilient substance (sporopollenin) ensuring that pollen can be preserved in rocks for hundreds of millions of years.
One document in particular has occupied my thoughts in the months since my visit: a newspaper clipping showing two men shaking hands. The men stand in front of Ulreich’s mural Indians Watching Stagecoach in the Distance (1940), which he painted for the post office in Columbia, MO. The man on the left is named in the caption as the 1937 U.S. pavilion’s architect, Paul Lester Wiener, while the one on the right, appearing in a feathered headdress, is identified simply as, “a Navajo Indian who gave his advice on the vast murals depicting Indian life and thought which are being painted by Buck [sic.] Ulreich for the outside of the skyscraper tower.” My goal, ultimately, is to identify this man. Yet even without this man’s identity, the photograph highlights an oft-overlooked aspect of twentieth-century American art: the essential contributions of Native Americans to the mural movement that overtook the United States in the years between World War I and World War II.
Imagine this: you drive home from work, flip on the light switch, check your phone, and consider what to make for dinner. In the course of your routine, chances are you aren’t thinking about where your vehicle, light bulbs, electronics, appliances, or side of rice came from. In today’s world many raw commodities and finished goods are produced and traded globally. The items we depend on in our everyday lives, the materials we use to build our homes and roads, and the energy we consume to produce and operate them may originate from distant shores. Exports are often shipped, quite literally, on ships, creating a maritime network that reaches coastal ports around the world and supports our daily activities.
The spectacular biodiversity of the northern Pacific region of South America has drawn our attention since early botanical expeditions to the tropics conducted by European naturalists mostly during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Chocó region in northwestern Colombia, one of the rainiest places on Earth with a mean annual rainfall exceeding 10000 mm (1) is a remarkable example, which is home to an incredibly biodiverse tropical forest with ca. 3% and 6% of all known species of plants and vertebrates, respectively (2). However, a protracted history of social conflicts and sociopolitical isolation, dating back to the Spanish colonial period, has plagued the local afro and indigenous communities. As a result, our ability to carry out scientific research in this astounding region has been hindered, and in consequence, our knowledge on the evolution of this biodiversity hotspot and its hosting landscape is still limited.
The silent killer fungus, Bd, was described by Smithsonian’s National Zoo veterinarians working with a scientist from the University of Maine (Longcore et al. 1999). This new fungus to science was found to cause the skin disease chytridiomycosis — which leads to a ‘heart-attack’ and death to frogs and salamanders. We now know that the killer fungus originated in Asia and that humans unintentionally spread it around the world causing dramatic declines and disappearances of many amphibians. The killer fungus threatens the survival of more than 500 species of amphibians across the globe. Bd is now known as one of the most destructive pathogens ever recorded in wild animals.
It’s hard being a plant leaf - being eaten is a major risk. In tropical forests, ~10-15% (>70% in some species) of leaf area can be lost via herbivory (Cardenas et al., 2014; Coley & Barone, 1996). Plants may counteract herbivory via resistance, where chemical or mechanical defenses are used to deter herbivores, or resilience, where the effect of unavoidable damage is mitigated (Kursar & Coley, 1996).
Sustainability is not a novel thing. Some studies have shown that most of the existing hunter-gatherers in the world (such as Pigmies in Congo, Agta Philippines and Ache in Paraguay) employ management strategies to protect the group from free-riders and guarantee sustainable use of resources. Thus, if we consider them as the closest societies to historical hunter-gatherer groups, sustainability has been part of our goal for as long as our species has occupied the planet. For over 300 thousand years, humans have been seeking strategies to develop in ways that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” 2. However, we may not all make it. Sustainability has changed from “the norm” to a rare and uncommon habit. Thus, how we can convince people to start to be conscious about something that seems to be an integral part of our own strategy to live as a group?
No one would ever imagine that digging up 50 cm into the ground could be a difficult task; it surely does not sound as impressive as climbing a 50 m tree in South American jungles or going into the depth of the ocean looking for secretive marine creatures. But I can assure you that it is somehow adventurous when you are looking for colonies of the ant Ectatomma ruidum – particularly when you are trying to collect the whole colony.
When looking at forests, we hardly get to see beyond a bunch of green. However, for a plant ecologist, forests represent a much more complex world consisting of different species.
This diversity of species also reflects diverse forms and functions that define how plants work. Using information of plant function could help predict forests' responses to changing environments.
When we think about art, what first comes to mind? Who is an artist?
These questions guided my research as I gathered resources for a lesson exploring several quilts in the collection at the Anacostia Community Museum. Along the way, I uncovered some of the stories associated with the colorful designs, adding a layer of complexity to these pieces of art. What follows is just one example of the many ways we can explore how memory helps us engage with objects in museum collections.
Do you prefer low, well-upholstered furniture? Do you like to sleep nude? Do you have a poor poker face? These questions may sound like another kooky BuzzFeed quiz, but they are actually taken from a test entitled “Who Are You?” The test, developed by psychologist William H. Sheldon, categorized people into one of three different body types: endomorph (fat), ectomorph (thin), and mesomorph (muscular) based on their responses to questions about their daily habits, traits, and preferences.
Museums have a lot of stuff. Wandering through the collection “pods,” as we call them at the Smithsonian, you can find mummies, ancient textiles, and taxidermized polar bears. You can even find jars of fish caught in the 1800s by some of the first documented naturalists. These fishes can tell us what coral reefs were like in the past and can help us figure out how we have changed these vibrant ecosystems over the past two centuries.
Each day, the National Museum of American History (NMAH) receives hundreds—sometimes thousands—of teenage visitors. Teens wearing bucket hats; groups in matching t-shirts; groups that are aggressively rude to staff in the elevators. But while the museum succeeds in many things, it does not necessarily engage well with youth
The Smithsonian’s American Women’s History Initiative – Because of Her Story – marks an exciting moment for the Smithsonian Institution to intentionally engage with women’s history. Launched in 2018, the initiative is one of the largest efforts to “research, collect, document, display, and share the compelling story of women” through various educational programming across the museum campus. The initiative encompasses a digital focus to “amplify a diversity of women’s voices” across many of the Smithsonian Institution’s programs and sites, including at the National Museum of American History (NMAH).
Flyers. Even in today’s increasingly digitalized society you still see them everywhere: clipped on light posts, spread out on the outside walls of buildings, handed out in corners, and so on. As we hold them in our hands or casually glance at them as we walk by, we seldom think of flyers as being keepers of history. But that is exactly what they can be, capturing and chronicling events that might have otherwise slipped through the cracks of historical archives.
Picture this: the year is 1983 and Disneyland has started dubbing some of its English commercials into Spanish in the hopes of reaching a wider audience. However, despite being surrounded by one of the largest Latino populations in the country, less than 15% of visitors were Latino.
For years, the dangerous virus currently making global headlines was circulating in wild animals, replicating and spreading with little notice from the host that carried it. This virus, that scientists now believe originated in bats, quickly turned from a benign hitchhiker to a deadly producer of disease when it was introduced to an animal population it had never come in contact with before – humans.
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