David Tuck : childhood's end

Book Review - Darwin Comes to Town by Menno Schilthuizen

Is it possible to see evolution in action?  It is a question that Menno Schilthuzien asks in his excellent book Darwin Comes to Town, and a question that is on my mind as my son and I sit in the 'Think Tank' of the Smithsonian National Zoo.  We are watching Batang, a female orangutan, manipulate grapes through the mesh that is too small for her fingers with a long shaft of bamboo. Standing next to the window, Dr. Jennifer Botting explains what is happening as we watch Batang strip the leaves

Oceans: Behind the Scenes at the American Museum of Natural History

Ichthyology Collection Room: There are many recessed doors at the American Museum of Natural History, but one in particular is magical.  It is a door that sits just back from one of the public hallways and is passed, unnoticed, by hundreds of visitors a day.   It is a door that opens into an underwater world, and to step across its threshold is to enter the world of the fishes. These rooms behind this innocuous door are the purview of the museum's Department of Ichthyology, and it is here

The American Museum of Natural History's New Exhibit: Unseen Oceans

(Photo courtesy of AMNH)      Transient Cartographies We know so little of our world. Truly so little. Travel certainly expands our horizons. If we care to, we can leave our devices off, our global positioning systems, and trace the lines of a journey across the surface of a map, tracing routes, roads, and interstates with our fingertips. Our perspective above a map is that of a satellite. We see highways as threads, forests as patches of green, deserts as ochre expanses, and mountains marked