This #ThrowbackThursday, explore archival images from the latest episode of #ShelfLife and be sure to check out the latest episode and 360 video via the link below! This image shows tossing on walrus-hide, a Chukchi midsummer ceremony to ward off dangers from contagious diseases or to assuage violent tempests, 1900-1901. Taken by Waldemar Borgoras.
Spotted salamanders and green algae make for an odd couple, but they share a close bond that begins when the algae start growing in the salamander’s egg. Just because it’s an intimate arrangement, though, doesn’t mean it goes smoothly for both parties, a new study by Museum scientists shows. While salamanders seem to take the connection in stride, it leaves algae cells struggling to get by.
This rare “cellular roommate” relationship between two very different species—which you can learn about in this episode of the Museum’s Shelf Life web series—has intrigued scientists for decades. That’s in part because, while algae are known to form similar relationships with invertebrates like corals and cicadas, this is the only algae symbiosis that involves a vertebrate species.
“Science shows us the many ways that life is interconnected, especially on the microscopic level, where we see how many organisms depend on close contact with or internalization of other species for food, defense, or reproduction,” said lead author John Burns, a postdoctoral researcher in the Museum’s Division of Invertebrate Zoology. “But the relationship between this particular alga and salamander is very unusual.”
Shelf Life episode 15 uncovers The Guts and Glory of Object Conservation. In the Museum’s Objects Conservation Laboratory, walrus intestines, birch bark, and reindeer hide are all in a day’s work for conservators trying to preserve Siberian anthropology collections for the future.
#ShelfLife is back in 360! Meet the shamans of snowy Siberia with the Jesup North Pacific Expedition—one of the largest anthropology expeditions of all time. Curator Laurel Kendall tells the story of how the Museum’s pre-Soviet collections remain vital to the preservation of a living culture: https://goo.gl/F4LwGG #360video
Curator of Micropaleontology Angelina Messina found beauty and wonder in some of the Museum’s tiniest specimens. She joined the staff in the 1930s, and with the help of Assistant Curator Eleanor Salmon, prepared catalogs of foraminifera—miniscule organisms that provide important markers to geologists and hold vital records of ancient climates within their fossilized chambers. Messina’s work won international recognition. Her 69-volume Catalogue of Foraminifera was a seminal work in micropaleontology, used in universities and every major micropaleontological laboratory of the large oil companies, and she also co-founded the journal Micropaleontology in 1955. Her work classifying the Museum’s foraminifera collection is still used by paleontologists, geologists, and climate scientists today. The collection itself is now part of a National Science Foundation-funded project to re-house and CT scan important specimens.
Work on these tiny fossils continues at the Museum today. In this episode of Shelf Life Scientific Assistant Bushra Hussaini, researcher Ellen Thomas, Curator Neil Landman, and intern Shaun Mahmood are preserving this invaluable collection.
Cuba is a key piece of the puzzle for bat researchers trying to understand biodiversity in the Caribbean. Watch the latest episode of Shelf Life to find out what researchers hope to find in Cuba.
Happy Valentine's Day! Celebrate the day by catching up on Shelf Life.
The newest episode of Shelf Life explores bat research in Cuba. Take a 360 look as researcher Alexa Sadier from the University of Illinois Urbana examines bat specimens in the Museum’s mammalogy collection. Watch the latest #ShelfLife episode and learn more about bat research.
In the summer of 2014, a team led by the Museum's Provost of Science Mike Novacek and Paleontology Division Chair Mark Norell headed to the Gobi for the joint American Museum of Natural History/Mongolian Academy of Sciences expedition. The group included Aki Watanabe, one of Mark Norell's students at the Museum's Richard Gilder Graduate School, who was recently chosen as a beta-tester for Google Glass and who recorded video on Glass throughout the trip. In this video, Watanabe finds a fossil dinosaur nest, and shows how he extracts and packages it to return to the lab for further research.
Today marks the birthday of legendary fossil hunter Roy Chapman Andrews. Born in 1880, Andrews began at the Museum as a whale researcher and went on to lead a team that made spectacular fossil discoveries in Central Asia in the 1920s.
Thanks to the Museum’s web series Shelf Life, you too can join an Andrews expedition. Shelf Life’s Fossil Hunting in the Gobi in 360 takes viewers into the field on the explorer’s historic expeditions to this vast desert, where his team turned up some of the world’s most iconic fossils, including the first clutch of dinosaur eggs ever discovered.
Andrews is just one piece of the Museum’s storied history of scientific exploration. The new season of Shelf Life features today’s paleontologists, as well as other scientists conducting research around the globe.
The island of Cuba is a key piece of the puzzle for two bat researchers trying to understand biodiversity in the Caribbean. Find out why on an expedition with mammalogists J. Angelo Soto-Centeno and Gilberto Silva Taboada, joined by Ana Luz Porzecanski, director of the Museum's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. Take an in-depth look at the episode here.
Find out this and more in the latest episode of #ShelfLife.
Season 2 of #ShelfLife takes a look at the many expeditions to sites around the world that have helped to build our amazing collections, and what Museum scientists bring with them to the field. Duct Tape: This is used for nearly everything: from wrapping fossils to marking things in the site to repairing damaged clothing and equipment. In a pinch, it can also be a part of your first aid kit. – Museum paleontologist, Carl Mehling
Science starts when you pack your bags, and before each episode, you’ll be able to take a look at how our researchers and scientists prepare for their travels. Field Book: This is an essential companion for keeping track of specimens, fossil localities, and other information. They often have waterproof pages, because you'll probably get rained on unless you're working in a desert. – Zac Calamari, Museum Paleontologist. Get packing with Shelf Life.
Among the fossils Museum researchers have discovered in the Gobi is this skull from the dinosaur Haya griva. Explore Museum expeditions to the Gobi in the latest episode of #ShelfLife.
It's time for a #tbt look into the archives. Legendary fossil hunter Roy Chapman Andrews first ventured to the region in the 1920s, leading a series of expeditions that would go down in the annals of paleontology and pop culture alike. Alongside colleagues like Henry Fairfield Osborn and Walter Granger, he not only discovered new species of fossil mammals and dinosaurs, but also unearthed the first clutch of dinosaur eggs in 1923.
New to 360 video? Here’s a quick primer on how to watch. Check out our new 360 video about fossil hunting in the Gobi from Shelf Life’s Season 2 here.
