Smithsonian
eklemetti | April 5, 2010Quick hits for a Monday morning (however, the week did have a good start).
Lava fountaining on March 27, 2010 at the Eyjafjallajokull-Fimmvörduháls eruption in Iceland.
The Eyjafjallajokull-Fimmvörduháls eruption is still going strong with two active fissure - and a lot of tourists poking around as well. If you watch the webcams closely, you can even see the cars and hikers trekking up near the erupting basaltic fissure (except today, as there seems to be a blizzard). Not to say that people are getting a little, well, nonchalant, but there is a story of serving meals cooked on lava up…
eklemetti | February 25, 2010The flu has retreated and I'm getting back on track. Huzzah!
I'll get back to the blog by posting this week's new USGS / Smithsonian Institution Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcano Report. Looks like some interesting stuff in it ...
Looks like there were some small eruptions from Oldoinyo Lengai in Tanzania. The volcano is one of the few (only active?) carbonatite volcanoes in the world, erupting a lava composed primarily of calcium carbonate and sodium minerals with very little silica. It leads to the odd lava that erupt black (and cool ~ 500C) and cool to white, making it one of the…
eklemetti | February 19, 2010Long week, quick news:
Tiatia in Russia erupting in an undated photo.
The latest USGS/Smithsonian Institution
_blank">Weekly Volcano Activity Report is up. One interesting bit in the report is a thermal anomaly at
_blank">Tiatia in Russia (just north of Japan in the Kuril Islands) - a volcano for which I am unfamiliar. However, it sounds great according to the
_blank">GVP: "Tiatia volcano, one of the most impressive of the Kuril Islands, consists of a beautifully symmetrical cone that rises above the broad rim of an erosionally furrowed, 2.1 x 2.4 km wide caldera. The volcano…
eklemetti | February 10, 2010Sally Sennert from the Smithsonian Institution sent me an email to say that this week's USGS/Smithsonian Institute Weekly Volcanic Report will be delayed due to the inclement weather in the Washington DC area. She can't connect with the server, so the report can't be updated on the Smithsonian website ... so here it is! Look for it to show up on the Smithsonian site with all the bells and whistles as soon as DC thaws out.
And a big thanks to Sally for sending me the Report to post.
***PLEASE NOTE: Website posting of the SI/USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for 3-9 February 2010 will be…
eklemetti | January 28, 2010Some news for the last Friday in January:
Volcanic lightning captured over Redoubt in March 2009.
Tungurahua in Ecuador continues to erupt. Yesterday, the volcano spread ash over much of central Ecuador. Apparently people in Ecuador aren't taking the hazard of ash too seriously, with many ignoring recommendations to wear masks when the ash is falling. Over 50 explosions have been recorded over the last 24 hours at the volcano according to the Ecuadorian Instituto GeofÃsico, most of them small to moderate.
We also have a new USGS/Smithsonian Institute Volcano Activity Report. Much of the "…
eklemetti | January 20, 2010This week's USGS/Smithsonian GVP Volcano Update!
Highlights include:
A volcano I had never heard of in the Kuril islands is showing signs of life: Kharimkotan. Satellite images show a thermal anomaly at the summit of the volcano - its last known eruption was in 1933.
Ash, sulfur dioxide and steam continue to erupt from Nyamuragira in the Congo, although lava flows have abated.
Crater C at Arenal had sporadic strombolian activity - which is par for the course for the Costa Rican volcano.
I must have missed this, but since December 14, the ash erupted at Gaua in Vanuatu has become denser and…
bcohen | July 28, 2009Not the best title for a post, and by best, I mean most accurate. If you'd like to get to the bottom of it, though, try this new dispatch over at McSweeney's: "The Elevator to Room 1028." It has elevators. It has intrigue. It has secrecy. It has stacks of books. And it has elevators.
This is part two of "Days at the Museum." Part I was noted here. It had a better picture.
bcohen | July 16, 2009I haven't been here much, but I did begin a new series over at McSweeney's called "Days at the Museum." It's a limited-run set of dispatches (summer-length, let's say) about research at the Smithsonian and related miscellany. Tuesday was the first one, called "Ronzoni All the Way Down."
This is the central image of the story, a fairly well-known portrait by the French Barbizon artist Jean-Francois Millet from 1857 called "The Gleaners":
And what is the story? I'll repost it in full below the fold. I'd bet it's fair to say it has the character of one of Lawrence Weschler's Convergences…
awild | June 9, 2009at the Washington Post:
This is the multi-generational public exhibition mentality at work: Every show should have something that makes each member of the family say wow. Ants fight, ants work, ants make things. Ants are just like us: "Text messaging is out, but they have other ways to communicate . . . " Which would be pheromones, or chemical signals, something Aristotle never could have detected when he distinguished merely social animals from the social animal par excellence, man, who can speak.
Details on the exhibit here.
sciencewoman | March 20, 2009The Smithsonian Institution has made available on Flickr an amazing set of photographs of early women scientists and engineers.The pictures include women who worked at the Smithsonian and images from the Science Service Archives now housed at the Smithsonian. Some of these women scientists are well-known, even Nobel laureates, while others worked in obscurity. Some used their scientific training and passion to do research, some to save lives as doctors and nurses, some to write about science, some to break the sound barrier, and some to advance the cause of women. To me, all of them were…
grrlscientist | November 25, 2008tags: Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, collections, education, science, streaming video
This streaming video is by one of the scientists at the Smithsonian Institute. It shows pair formation, spermatophore transfer and reproductive anatomy of the jellyfish Carybdea sivickisi (Cubozoa: Carybdeidae) at the National Museum of Natural History, aka, the Smithsonian. I think they should have used Bolero as the music to accompany this video, what do you think? [6:35].
grrlscientist | November 24, 2008tags: Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, collections, education, science, streaming video
This streaming video is by the Smithsonian Institute. It shows a time-lapse series detailing the construction of the Sant Ocean Hall at the National Museum of Natural History, aka, the Smithsonian. This is the museum's largest permanent exhibition, and it just opened in September 2008 [3:07].
grrlscientist | November 23, 2008tags: Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, outreach, education, science, streaming video
This streaming video is the last part of a four-part series by the Smithsonian Institute. It features outreach programs where kids especially can learn about science by participating in ongoing research at the National Museum of Natural History, aka, the Smithsonian. [2:17].
grrlscientist | November 22, 2008tags: Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, fieldwork, education, science, streaming video
This streaming video is the third of a four-part series by the Smithsonian Institute. It features fieldwork that scientists engage in by trekking through the tropical rainforests and sending probes to the bottom of the sea at the National Museum of Natural History, aka, the Smithsonian. [2:31].
grrlscientist | November 21, 2008tags: Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, research, science, streaming video
This streaming video is part one of a four-part series by the Smithsonian Institute. It features some of the scientists who work behind the scenes at the National Museum of Natural History, aka, the Smithsonian. In this video, you'll catch a glimpse of some of my colleagues from when I was a postdoc [2:32].
grrlscientist | November 20, 2008tags: Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, collections, education, science, streaming video
This streaming video is the second of a four-part series by the Smithsonian Institute. It features the extensive collections that that are archived at the National Museum of Natural History, aka, the Smithsonian. [2:34].
grrlscientist | August 17, 2008tags: new bird species, African forest robin, Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus, Gamba Complex, Moukalaba-Doudou National Park, ornithology, birds, avian, Smithsonian, researchblogging.org
A male specimen of the newly-discovered olive-backed forest robin, Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus, is carefully examined in the hand of Brian Schmidt, the Smithsonian ornithologist who discovered the species.
Image: Brian Schmidt.
A new species of bird has been identified by ornithologists from the Smithsonian Institution. The bird, which was first discovered in Gabon, a small country in Africa, was unknown to the…
eklemetti | May 26, 2008
I've made it back from my trip to Washington DC. The Smithsonian Institution is quite a fun place to visit, especially if rocks are your ilk. Be sure to check out the wonderful mineral collection at the Natural History Museum. I only wish the Global Volcanism Program would have a more interactive (and visible) spot in the museum itself.
zooillogix | February 25, 2008Ever wanted to build a world-class exhibit for your pet Asian Sloth Bear in your backyard or living room but didn't know where to start? What kind of furniture do sloth bears prefer? How do they feel about toile? Can you feed them chocolate? Well now your problems are solved, thanks to ZooLex!
ZooLex is a service of the World Zoo and Aquarium Association (WAZA), and includes a small but growing collection of design specs and industry resources for folks in the zoo exhibit planning business. As you might imagine, every last detail needs to be mapped out, from safety, cleaning and feeding to…