#natural-history

#natural-history

If you're heading to Washington, DC, you might be wondering how to best organize your itinerary.There's a lot to do-and three days, our sample itinerary here, is hardly enough time to do it all.Still, we've featured some of the city's highlights, allowed a little leeway for a choose-your-own-adventure, and plotted the best itinerary for three days in Washington, DC.

Happy weekend, everyone!We hope the air clears up so you can enjoy the weekend's fun outdoor music shows.If you prefer to stay inside, you can visit the new Capital Jewish Museum, or get tickets to Hadestown the musical.Best Things to Do This Weekend
June 8-11



Capital Jewish Museum opening.Get a first look at DC's newest cultural attraction: the Capital Jewish Museum.

It took a moment to spot the fragment, initially: fist-size and unnaturally smooth, nestled between shrubs teeming with burrs in an endless expanse of arid plains.But after the first, the others were easier to pick out, gleaming dirty white against the red earth and run through with a honeycomb texture.

Sir David Attenborough has said internal BBC politics resulted in him spending much of his career documenting wildlife abroad rather than in the British Isles.The broadcaster and naturalist, 96, said that when he joined the corporation in 1952 he was soon offered Africa as his area of specialism, which suited him down to the ground.

Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter.Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.Analysis of fossils found in the far north of Canada has revealed that two previously unknown species of ancient near-primates lived above the Arctic Circle some 52 million years ago, according to new research.

For nearly 100 years, the Scripps National Spelling Bee has showcased the biggest words from the youngest lexicologists.The inaugural champion, 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser of Louisville, correctly spelled gladiolus to claim a prize of $500 at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.The words have only gotten harder, the pressure greater and the national spotlight larger.

This article is also a weekly newsletter.Sign up for Race/Related here.As the editors for Special Sections plan our large and popular Museums and Fine Arts & Exhibits sections in the spring and fall each year, we think about themes that will help us assign the most meaningful articles.Art institutions are reacting creatively to the challenges they face in attracting new audiences and remaining relevant to existing ones.

Realtor.comThe swoon-worthy Asa Gray House at 88 Garden Street in Cambridge, MA, checks all the boxes-history, charm, and walking proximity to Harvard Square.The place was recently listed for $10,800,000.Although always privately owned, the home has been a National Historic Landmark since 1965.The five-bedroom, 6.5-bath dwelling is named after the famous Harvard botanist and passionate Darwinian, who lived in it for more than 40 years.

On a recent vacation in Careyes, Mexico, Sara Beltran scoured the beach looking for beautiful seashells for her Dezso jewelry line.And finding an unusual one, she thinks, is like discovering a great diamond.Amazing shells are hard to find, Ms. Beltran, a New York-based designer, said.You can't buy them or create them; it's a gift from Mother Nature.

To mark International Museum Day, we've selected 10 museums from the Dezeen archive that were designed by famous architects or are otherwise architecturally significant.Ten museums from across the globe, including a zigzagging museum in Berlin and a tree-canopy-like museum in Budapest, are among the buildings in this roundup to mark International Museum Day on 18 May.

The latest edition of our Dezeen Debate newsletter features the cave-like Gilder Center in Manhattan designed by Studio Gang.Subscribe to Dezeen Debate now.Studio Gang has designed an addition to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.Named the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Innovation, and Education, the building has a stone facade made from Milford pink granite and a cavernous interior.

People working in the built environment should prioritise the reuse of existing buildings and aim to increase the sustainability of concrete, said American architect Jeanne Gang.Speaking on the occasion of the opening of the Gilder Center in New York, the founder of Chicago-based Studio Gang told Dezeen that reusing buildings is important if our built environment is to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Accords.

This week on Dezeen, the principal of Zaha Hadid Architects, Patrik Schumacher, revealed that the studio is utilising AI text-to-image generators such as DALL-E 2 to design ideas for projects.Speaking at a recent roundtable discussion on how artificial intelligence (AI) could change design, Schumacher explained how the studio was using image-generating technology.

At first it looks like a slightly more hairy rodent.But the spiny mouse's body is full of secrets.Found in rock outcrops throughout Africa and Europe, its back is full of porcupine-like quills made of stiffened fur.It has soft, easily torn skin and a remarkable ability to regenerate, like a species of desert gecko.

A series of explosions rang out in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, on Saturday morning after Russian strikes, jolting residents from a relative quiet that had taken hold over the last two weeks during a festive holiday period in the country.In a rare occurrence, some of the blasts were heard minutes before air-raid sirens sounded in the city, alarming people used to receiving early warnings of missiles or drones spotted by Ukrainian forces and giving them no time to scramble to underground shelters before the attacks.

In May 1941, the Royal College of Surgeons in London was bombed during a Nazi air raid.Among the specimens lost from its museum collection was a skeleton of an ichthyosaur  an extinct marine reptile that appeared millions of years before dinosaurs laid their first footprints on prehistoric soil.But not just any ichthyosaur was lost.

It could have been the toast of 1870s Central Park: a Frederick Law Olmsted-designed museum packed with sculptures of newly discovered dinosaurs.But when thugs with sledgehammers destroyed dinosaur models designed for the planned Paleozoic Museum in 1871, the life-size statues and their molds - and plans for the city's first dinosaur museum - were pulverized.

Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter.Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.During a recent excursion to the icy plains of Antarctica, an international team of researchers discovered five new meteorites including one of the largest ever found on the continent.

Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter.Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.The final resting place for dozens of massive prehistoric marine reptiles lies in what's now Nevada's Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.But why the ichthyosaurs died in such large numbers at this one particular fossil site some 230 million years ago has long been a source of debate among paleontologists.

A blue morpho butterfly sits on a leaf.A new study finds that butterflies likely originated somewhere in western North America or Central America around 100 million years ago.Kristen Grace/Florida Museum Akito Kawahara remembers being eight years old when he went on a special tour of the insect collection at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Fire officials responded to a blaze earlier this month near California's Lake Englebright.CAL FIRE Nevada Yuba Placer unit A "flaming basketball" meteor in the sky recently made headlines after claims that it struck a home in northern California and set it on fire.The house, which sits on a cattle ranch in Nevada County, about 60 miles from Sacramento, was destroyed.

Didn't get a ticket to National Gallery Nights this spring?The National Gallery of Art's popular post-work event wraps up this week, but there are still opportunities to visit more DC museums beyond the typical times.Here are five institutions opening their doors for after-hour events this summer.Phillips After 51600 21st St. NW Once a month, head to the Phillips Collection after 5 PM to partake in artsy activities and drink some beverages.

Chicago-based architecture firm Studio Gang has designed the Gilder Center in Manhattan to prioritize connectivity, creating a massive cavernous atrium meant to provoke a sense of exploration and discovery.The Richard Gilder Center for Science, Innovation, and Education is a new addition to the American Museum of Natural History off Central Park that unites, visually and functionally, the 26 buildings constructed there since its opening in the late 19th century.

Happy weekend, everyone!Close out the month of March with some springtime fun and take a tour of the historic White House gardens, or jam to live music outdoors at one of the area's cherry blossom-inspired parties.Best Things to Do This Weekend

The National Capital New Play Festival.Get an inside look at new theatrical works through play readings, panel discussions, and live productions at the Round House Theatre's National Capital New Play Festival .

Jackie Faherty knew she wanted to be an astronomer after she saw Contact, the 1997 movie based on the novel by the uber-famous astronomer Carl Sagan.I walked into the theater my freshman year at Notre Dame one person, and walked out a different person, she said.These days, as a senior scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, she specializes in brown dwarfs, which defy definition and exist in between stars and planets, she explained, and can help in studying star formation.

The Brits are known for being pretty creative when it comes to leisurely activities in their spare time.From photography, painting, or getting crafty, 3 out of 4 people say they try to do at least one creative activity when they have the chance.Of course, there are some of the less imaginative, somewhat predictable activities that have maintained their popularity over the years, such as going to the cinema or theatre or even reading.

Construction has progressed on Studio Gang's Gilder Center in New York City, with images showing the cave-like concrete interiors and panelled exterior nearing completion.American architecture studio Studio Gang has released images of the construction of the Gilder Center's central atrium, Griffin Atrium.

"Lights Out: Recovering Our Night Sky," an exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History, explores the impact of light pollution on different organisms.(Avalon.red/AlamyStock Photo)One of the darkest places in daytime Washington at the moment is a tribute to the night sky.The notably low-lit exhibition "Lights Out: Recovering Our Night Sky" is the National Museum of Natural History's effort to illustrate what's been lost as artificial illumination bleaches out the heavens.

This evening, right after sunset, the sky will display something beautiful: the brightest planets Venus and Jupiter will come so close to each that they will almost look like they might touch.AILSA CHANG, HOST: For many stargazers, this evening is a great time to go outside and experience the emotion known as awe because two of our solar system's planets are putting on a spectacular show right now.

BBC science journalist Richard Gray tells NPR's Daniel Estrin that dinosaurs may not have roared in the manner we commonly imagine.DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST: Dinosaurs - you think you know what their roar sounded like.You've seen the "Jurassic Park" movies.But paleontologists have disputed that notion for years.

A bejeweled tome in the "Nature of the Book" exhibition, which focuses on hand-press bookmaking before modern publishing.(Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History)"Nature of the Book," a new exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in D.C., dives into an offbeat history of books, focusing on long-ago artisans' use of natural items such as leather, flax, lead and even semiprecious jewels to create tomes.

Molds of an ichthyosaur skeleton.TOP: The Yale cast of the specimen discovered in 1819.BOTTOM: The recently discovered cast in Berlin.(Royal Society Publishing)In 1819, the complete fossil of an ichthyosaur dazzled scientists and the public.Thought to have been collected by pioneering English paleontologist Mary Anning, the fossil fanned interest in massive creatures that roamed Earth and swam the oceans millions of years ago.

(Image credit: D Ross Robertson/Smithsonian Institute)
The remains of a missing person in Argentina were recently recovered from the belly of a dead shark.The shark had been caught by fishers near where the man went missing, leading to speculation in the media that the shark may have killed him.But experts and police suspect that the man was already dead before the shark ate him.

Venus and Jupiter, in a rare conjunction, seem close even though they are 400 million miles apart.Stan Honda/AFP via Getty Images Last night, after dinner, I went outside to take care of our chickens.And I literally gasped.Up in the sky were two dazzlingly bright objects close to each other.It was a beautiful, extraordinary sight.

Zircons studied by the research team, photographed using cathodoluminescence, a technique that allowed the team to visualize the interiors of the crystals using a specialized scanning electron microscope.Dark circles on the zircons are the cavities left by the laser that was used to analyze the age and chemistry of the zircons.

NASHVILLE Not quite halfway through the new season of HBO's The White Lotus, a young woman, Portia, breaks into tears at breakfast.She is staying at a luxury resort in Sicily as the personal assistant of one of the wealthy guests.While her tablemate, a true vacationer, takes smiling selfies with the shining Ionian Sea in the background, Portia glances across the terrace at her despairing employer.

NASHVILLE  As the documentary Free Puppies opens, a fluffy dog named Albert is galloping down a beach boardwalk.His companion, a much bigger dog, is leaping with excitement, but Albert is harnessed into a dog wheelchair.He was found on the side of a road in Arkansas, either thrown out of a car or hit by a car, a voice-over tells us.

On fall afternoons in the late 1980s, my mother knew better than to keep me inside.With the school day ended, I was free to bungee my tape deck to the handlebar of my BMX bike, fire up some Pink Floyd and ride the streets of suburban Cleveland, falling in with the usual horde of neighborhood kids.We'd raise leaf piles to annihilate with our bikes; we'd dig trenches in mud, poke dead squirrels with sticks and jump out of trees; and we'd sprain fingers and bloody our knees.

Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Jessica Moore (Les Fugitives, 10.99)In this timely novella about a Russian military conscript defecting from the army, 20-year-old Aliocha is on the Trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Vladivostok, spanning almost a quarter of the Earth's circumference.