3 global warming 55 million years ago 6 artful boxes of joseph cornell 8 bradley & hubbard lamp makers 10 alien id chart

Smithsonian Institution

SCIENCE, HISTORY AND THE ARTS NUMBERNUMBER 15 1 ·WINTERWINTER 2007 2007 smithsonian online

Global radio. From the ringing of the Appalachian banjo to Haitian meringue piano, Scottish ballads, Comanche flute, protest songs and the Uruguayan accordion, with a few clicks of a computer mouse, Smithsonian Global Sound will send to your computer a continu- ous stream of music from every number 15 · winter 2007 corner of the world—at no charge. All audio tracks are selec- Published quarterly by the Smithsonian Office of Public Affairs, tions from the eclectic and re- Building, Room 354, MRC 033, P.O. Box spected library of Smithsonian 37012, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012, for Folkways Recordings. As a selec- Smithsonian Contributing Members, scholars, tion plays, listeners can click the educators, museum personnel, libraries, “Recording Info” button on their journalists and others. To be added to the mailing list or to request this publication Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, a Colombian group that computer screen to learn more in an accessible format, call (202) 633-5181 plays folk dance music on Folkways Recordings about the track and the CD— (voice) or (202) 633-5285 (TTY). available for purchase online—on John Barrat, Editor which it is featured. Listeners can choose from an index of genres, such as Silk Road Ra- dio, Songs of Protest, Music of Appalachia, Fiddle Radio, Radio Latino, Radio Haiti and Evelyn S. Lieberman, Director of Communications and Public Affairs even a channel featuring the favorite Folkways tracks of Greatful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. Online video performances and interviews round out this cyber-age well- Kathy Lindeman, Publications Director spring of the music that the world is listening to.—www.smithsonianglobalsound.org Telephone: (202) 633-2400 E-mail: [email protected] ‘Women of Our Time.’ Aviator Amelia Earhart, Actress Mae West and First Lady Internet: www.si.edu/insideresearch Eleanor Roosevelt are among the 36 memorable faces gracing the online exhibition Contributing Members who seek information “Women of Our Time: 20th-Century about the Smithsonian or about their Photographs From the National Portrait memberships may write to The Contributing Gallery.” Each portrait selected for this Membership, Smithsonian Institution, MRC exhibition captures a significant mo- 712, P.O. Box 37102, Washington, D.C. ment in its sitter’s life. Taken together, 20013-7012, or call 1 (800) 931-32CM or (202) 633-6300. the stylistic diversity of these images is a testament to the depth and breadth of On the cover: A fossil leaf of Populus wyomin- creativity in photographic portraiture in giana, possibly a relative of living poplar trees. the 20th century. From the soft-focus P. wyomingiana expanded its range north into Wyoming some 55 million years ago, after the pictorialism used in the early 1900s, Earth became warmer, during the period known such as Arnold Genthe’s 1916 silver as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. print of dancer Isadora Duncan, to con- After the climate cooled again, P. wyomingiana trived portraits of Hollywood stars— disappeared from this region. Excavated in Nickolas Muray’s colorful photograph Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin by Scott Wing, a pa- leobotanist at the Smithsonian’s National Mu- of actress Anna May Wong, for in- seum of Natural History, fossils such as this are stance—these images chart the evolu- helping scientists predict how modern-day plants tion of photographic portraiture in the will respond to global warming. See story, Page 3. 1900s. Short biographies accompany (Photo by Scott Wing) each portrait, as does a brief summary of the circumstances surrounding how each image came to be taken. Anna May Wong, by Nickolas Muray, 1937, —www.npg.si.edu/cexh/woot from “Women of Our Time”

2 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 PALEOBIOLOGY Fossils hold clues to predicting how plants will respond to global warming

By Michael Lipske Special to Inside Smithsonian Research

hen Scott Wing is hunt- ing for plant fossils in the badlands of W Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin—a vast, lightly peopled zone of sagebrush and weathered hills that the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History paleobotanist has visited off and on for more than 30 years—sometimes his attention strays. “You can hardly help it,” he explains. “If you’re collecting fossils, you’re sitting in a hole in the ground. In between using the pick and the shovel to make the hole big- ger, and pulling out the biggest pieces of rock and splitting them open with a ham- mer, it’s not uncommon to think about what the landscape would have been like” back when the Bighorn Basin was still be- ing formed and the fossil leaves Wing seeks were alive and green. If Wing’s hole in the ground could transport him to that time—55 million In Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin, Scott Wing searches for fossil leaves in sediments laid years ago, when the late Paleocene era was down during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. (Photo by Francesca Smith) giving way to the early Eocene era—the scientist would find himself surrounded What Wing is learning about this long- 55 million years ago grew even warmer. In not by desert sagebrush and rattlesnakes ago world is helping scientists understand just about 10,000 years, the basin’s cli- but by palm trees and ferns, alligators and how plants will respond to the global mate went from Floridian to something cat-sized horses. “The climate was very warming being caused today by the burn- more like southern Mexico. different,” he says, and the landscape ing of massive amounts of fossil fuel and “It was a global warming on top of an “would have looked something like a for- the resulting build-up of greenhouse already globally warm situation,” Wing est in Florida.” gases, such as carbon dioxide, in the at- says. Earth’s average surface temperature The Rocky Mountains that surround mosphere. rose 4 to 8 degrees Celsius and stayed that the Bighorn Basin would still be rising, way for the next 80,000 to 100,000 years. rivers crossing the basin would be deposit- Thermal maximum The Bighorn Basin’s eroded hills expose ing massive quantities of mud and sand Wing is studying fossils from a sliver of rock from the Paleocene-Eocene bound- shrugged off by the mountains, and those time known as the Paleocene-Eocene ary. That rock contains evidence of sediments would be capturing the plant Thermal Maximum, or PETM, a geologic changes brought on by the PETM: fossils parts that Wing digs for every summer. eyeblink when that warm, moist world of (continued)

INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 3 Wing calls this work “one of the most important things that we do with this fossil record.”

of primates and other mammals that mi- the Northern Hemisphere some 20,000 plants—invading Southern species that grated to North America when the warm- years ago. “So it is known that plant pop- replaced earlier basin plants—over oth- ing exposed Arctic land bridges to Asia ulations have the capacity to adjust their ers. That makes the fossil plants from the and Europe. But only recently have pale- ranges relatively quickly,” Wing says. But Bighorn Basin the first “real examples” of obotanists like Wing had proof of how the when the glaciers withdrew, they left be- how rapidly plants can respond to warm- PETM affected plant life. hind a landscape scraped clean of vegeta- ing in an already warm world, Wing says. “Things started to click in the summer tion, exposing territory ripe for coloniza- of 2003,” says Wing, who that season tion by plants. Hot topic found the first fossil leaves and pollen That wasn’t the case during the PETM. Knowing how plants have responded to known to be from the PETM. Since then, Even before that global warming event, global warming in the past may help in six PETM plant sites have been identified, North America was carpeted with forests predicting the effects of future climate all in the Bighorn Basin, and in Novem- to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. “There change. In fact, the PETM is a hot topic ber 2005, Wing and his team reported were already plants living all over the among scientists, and not just those with their findings in the journal Science. place,” Wing says. Thus the climate their eyes on the past. “We had a confer- change caused by the PETM favored some ence last summer, and there were close to Pushing north What they have learned is that during the PETM, global warming pushed several kinds of plants northward into the basin. These include ancestors of warmth-loving plants like the paw-paw and poinsettia. Fossils reveal these same plants had long thrived in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. But during the 10,000 years that worldwide temperatures climbed to PETM levels, several species of Southern plants surged north some 1,000 miles. Then, at the end of the period of global warming, those plants disappeared from the Bighorn Basin. The last time plants anywhere on Earth changed their ranges so widely and rapidly was when glaciers retreated from

4 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 200 people there who were all working on 55 million years ago. The shapes and sizes various aspects of this event. It’s a very of leaves, whether of plant species still liv- lively topic right now,” says Wing, adding ing today or those from the distant past, that there is a good reason for all the inter- are highly correlated with climate. By ana- est in the PETM. “It’s seen as being rele- lyzing each fossil leaf—its overall size, as vant to the future.” well as the features of the leaf margin— Not only was the PETM a rapid change Wing can draw conclusions about chang- in climate, like the accelerated warming ing levels of precipitation and temperature we are witnessing today, but the massive during an event like the PETM. quantity of carbon (about 5,000 gigatons) that was released into the atmosphere ‘Postdictions’ during the past event “is roughly the same For several years, Wing has shared his amount of carbon that we estimate hu- findings with climatologists who create mans are going to produce during the the general-circulation computer models next 500 years by burning fossil-fuel re- used to predict the rate of future climate serves,” Wing says. change, including global warming. Wing That makes the PETM the best geologic calls this work “one of the most important analog to climate change now being things that we do with this fossil record. caused by human production of carbon “The projections of how much warming dioxide and other greenhouse gases. there will be as the result of anthropogenic What caused the PETM? No one knows carbon dioxide emissions are based on for sure, but one theory suggests that ris- computer models,” Wing adds, “and the ing ocean temperatures, or perhaps an truth is that we don’t really know how undersea earthquake, led to the melting well those models work at doing their job. of ice containing methane, which was They all show warming, but they show trapped in sediments on the ocean floor. different amounts of warming.” Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. Wing and other paleontologists are help- Above: Rhus nigricans, a fossil relative of Released into the ocean and atmosphere, ing climate scientists test the accuracy of the sumac tree, was found in Wyoming’s it would have reacted with oxygen, pro- the models’ ‘postdictions’ of temperature Bighorn Basin in sediments laid down dur- ducing still more greenhouse gases in the and rainfall patterns in the past against ing the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maxi- form of carbon dioxide and water vapor. what is actually known about those past mum. During the PETM, many species of Those gases may have set in motion the conditions from the fossil record. That Southern plants, including this one, abrupt, worldwide warming, the effects of work can help reveal the strengths, as well spread north from the Gulf of Mexico into which Wing reads in the fossils he exca- as the weaknesses of models that govern- Wyoming, a distance of some 1,000 miles, vates in the Bighorn Basin. ment policy makers are relying on to pre- in 10,000 years or less. dict the severity of future warming. Field guide “It’s the time-machine aspect of things Opposite, top: Fossils of an unidentified Good finds from his summers of field- that I enjoy,” Wing says of his work in the species of plant found in rock laid down work are carefully wrapped and brought Bighorn Basin, where pick-and-shovel la- during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal back to the National Museum of Natural bor among the sagebrush can set his Maximum in the Bighorn Basin of History in Washington, D.C. There, Wing mind roaming backward across the ages. Wyoming. and museum volunteers “prepare out” the But Wing’s time machine clearly travels specimens. “Almost always, part of the forward, too, with the fossil leaves he un- Opposite, bottom: Fossil bean leaves thing that you’re interested in is still cov- earths and studies revealing as much (Machaerium) from 55 million-year-old ered up,” Wing explains, so he and his about our world’s warm future as about sediments deposited during the PETM. helpers must painstakingly chip away the its past. ❖ These leaves are not found in sediments fine-grained, pale mudstone that contains laid down before or immediately after the each fossil leaf. PETM, indicating that the plants moved Photos and descriptions of the leaves end into the area during the PETM and disap- up in fat binders that Wing calls a “field peared when temperatures cooled. (Scott guide to the flora” of the Bighorn Basin of Wing photos)

INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 5 Thoughtful juxtapositions fill Cornell retrospective

By Donald Smith Special to Inside Smithsonian Research

e was a package of para- A prolific artist, Cornell, who died in nell aficionados from around the world. doxes. He admired women, 1972 at age 69, all but invented boxes as “It was a great puzzle,” says Hartigan, yet never married. A film- art, a form much admired and occasionally chief curator at the Peabody Essex Mu- H maker, he never owned a borrowed by surrealists and pop artists. seum in Salem, Mass., and co-organizer camera. He loved music, but never took The challenge faced by Joseph Cornell of the Cornell exhibition. “Putting to- up an instrument. During his career as an authority Lynda Roscoe Hartigan in gether an exhibition is a very creative act. artist, however, Joseph Cornell focused his putting together the second major Cornell One must come up with a concept, decide relentless energy on collecting bits of pa- retrospective since his death—the exhibi- how best to visualize it and organize the per, dime-store toys and natural objects, tion “Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagi- material around ideas. I spent a lot of such as stones and seashells. He arranged nation,” on view through Feb. 19 at the time arranging and rearranging images of these objects in glass-fronted boxes remi- Smithsonian American Art Museum in Cornell’s works on my dining room table, niscent of the “shadow boxes” favored in Washington, D.C.—was figuring out how deciding whether something worked bet- Victorian-era homes for showing off accu- to present the 177 widely varied Cornell ter over here or over there. mulations of precious minutia. artworks. Many were borrowed from Cor- During the two months leading up to the exhibition opening, Hartigan worried “that people wouldn’t get the ‘conversa-

Above: Joseph Cornell with his box “Garbo: The Crystal Mask,”about 1939-1940, Joseph Cornell Study Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Left: “Untitled (Cockatoo With Watch Faces),”about 1949, box construction with inoperative music box,The Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection, © The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, N.Y. (Photo by Michael Tropea)

Opposite: “Untitled (Soap Bubble Set),” 1936, box construction,Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Conn. Purchased through the gift of Henry and Walter Keney, © The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, N.Y. (Photo by Allen Phillips)

6 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 tions,’” she says, referring to the cross-ref- erences she sought to suggest by thought- ful juxtapositions of disparate pieces. But her worries were unsubstantiated. When the exhibition opened, “it was grati- fying that people would look at the works for a long time and then say things like, ‘I never thought of it in that way’ and ‘It’s great to see such different combinations, related ideas and visual elements, to look at such great conversations.’ These comments were music to my ears,” Hartigan says. Joseph Cornell was a late bloomer as an artist. Born into an old, distinguished and sometimes rich American family, he struggled, from age 18, to provide for his family after his father died. He cared for both his mother and younger brother, Robert, who suffered from cerebral palsy. A self-taught artist, Cornell drew on themes suggested by his restless, wide- ranging curiosity about the natural world and the world of art. He read incessantly. His interests ranged from 17th-century English metaphysical poet John Donne to contemporary French novelist and film- maker Alain Robbe-Grillet. He had a spe- cial affection for the American transcen- dentalist poet Emily Dickinson. Rarely venturing beyond the borders of his native New York, Cornell took long The first major posthumous Cornell ret- images were originally created by Cornell. meandering walks from his wooden frame rospective, mounted in 1980 by New York’s Instead, he took bits and pieces of film house in a modest area of Queens. He Museum of Modern Art, was organized shot by others and spliced them together haunted Manhattan bookstores and art chronologically, exploring Cornell’s devel- in new ways. galleries and the theater district, where he opment as an artist from beginning to end. “I’d already done a tremendous amount formed worshipful relationships with ac- For this exhibition, Hartigan took a the- of research on Cornell and his work,” tresses, ballerinas (ballet was another of matic approach, dividing Cornell’s work Hartigan says. “This show was a chance to Cornell’s great passions) and movie stars, into 10 sections. The introductory “Navi- read his art more broadly in terms of con- including Lauren Bacall, Hedy Lamar and gating a Career” provides an overview of cepts like memory and vision, the rela- Greta Garbo. Cornell used images of these Cornell’s evolution as an artist. tionships between art and science, what women in his artful boxes. “Cabinets of Curiosity,” “Dream Ma- Cornell did with those subjects and how Hartigan has been a Cornell scholar for chines,” “Nature’s Theater,” “Geographies he interpreted them. I was able to really more than 20 years, while working as chief of the Heavens,” “Bouquets of Homage,” reflect on what I’d learned and been curator at the Smithsonian American Art “Crystal Cages” and “Chambers of Time” thinking about over the years.” ❖ Museum, where she was founding curator each explore recurring themes of his work. of the museum’s Joseph Cornell Study Cen- The section “Wonderland” is composed After its Smithsonian debut, “Joseph ter. The center was established in 1978 of a selection of source material drawn Cornell: Navigating the Imagination” will be when Cornell’s sister and brother-in-law from the Joseph Cornell Study Center. on view at the Peabody Essex Museum in donated a collection of his works and re- Finally, “Movie Palace” displays a selec- Salem, Mass., from April 28 to Aug. 19 and lated documentary material to the Smith- tion of Cornell’s experimental films. Like at the San Francisco Museum of Modern sonian. much of his other art, none of the film Art from Oct. 6 to Jan. 6, 2008.

INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 7 AMERICAN HISTORY Smithsonian Castle holds a well-documented collection of Bradley & Hubbard lamps

By Donald Smith Special to Inside Smithsonian Research

e was instantly smitten. The curvaceous kerosene lamp for sale in the antique shop H in Hyattsville, Md., had a re- gal look. It stood 2 feet tall with a center pedestal of green alabaster resting on lions-paw feet. Its heavily filigreed font- holder, decorated with human faces, was right out of Victorian New England. “It’s a Bradley & Hubbard, you know,” the shop owner said encouragingly. Rick Stamm had no idea what the man meant, but it sounded impressive. He bought the lamp on the spot. Since that day 23 years ago, Stamm— keeper of the collection of furnishings used inside the Smithsonian’s circa-1850 Castle, the Institution’s administrative headquarters, in Washington, D.C.—has learned a great deal about the Bradley & Hubbard Manufacturing Co., one of the premier lamp makers of 19th-century America. Somewhere on his scholarly journey retracing the history of antique lighting, paging through a labyrinth of One of America’s largest producers of Above: James Hobbins, executive assis- U.S. Patent Office records and traveling to kerosene lamps and other metal house- tant to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, antique shops throughout most of the hold items, including andirons, clocks, works by the light of an electrified table mid-Atlantic states, Stamm’s interest match-safes and desktop stationery sets, lamp made by the Bradley & Hubbard turned, he says, into an obsession. Bradley & Hubbard was founded in 1852 Manufacturing Co., circa 1910. “As I got into my research, I began to and continued through 1940, when the understand and appreciate how different company was bought by the Charles Opposite, from top: A Bradley & Hubbard Bradley & Hubbard Co. objects are. Their Parker Co.—one of Bradley & Hubbard’s brass desk set, circa 1934; a Bradley & makers were truly masters of metalwork,” rivals in the town of Meriden, Conn. The Hubbard table lamp, circa 1910; a page Stamm says, picking up an 1880s match- last Bradley & Hubbard lamp was manu- from an 1892 Bradley & Hubbard patent; safe and turning it over. “These objects factured in the early 1950s, and the demo- and a Bradley & Hubbard kerosene were made by pouring molten metal into lition of the old factory buildings after a lantern, circa 1905 (Photos by John Barrat) sand molds. They are made of cast iron yet catastrophic fire in 1973 destroyed any are smooth and finished on the bottom.” factory records that may have still existed

8 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 in the long-abandoned buildings. As keeper of the Castle collection, Stamm is responsible for the care of more than 3,000 pieces of 19th-century furni- ture, lighting fixtures, porcelain, glass and other decorative objects that give the of- fices, halls and reception rooms of the Smithsonian Castle a historical ambience. He thoroughly documented every item in this collection based on its identity, prove- nance and other pertinent information. Partly to compile information on his new acquisitions and partly to satisfy his own curiosity, Stamm has been research- find the patent record.” Patent records not ing the Bradley & Hubbard Co. for only helped Stamm piece together the decades. Early on, he ran into a major manufacturing history of the Bradley & roadblock because of the destruction of Hubbard Co., but also to put a date to the firm’s records in the 1973 fire. many objects in the Castle collection. On “I went a couple of times to Meriden, one occasion, they even helped him solve Conn., where the company was headquar- a puzzle. tered, but there wasn’t much to find,” he “I found a pair of kerosene lamps whose recalls. “The historical society had some parts had been mixed up,” Stamm says. pamphlets and old catalogs and some “One was made by Bradley & Hubbard, photographs. But there wasn’t much and the other, by a different company. In more.” electrifying them, someone had taken Lacking the company’s archives, Stamm them apart, then put them back together turned to the next best thing—the official with the font from one, the column from records of the U.S. Patent Office. The the other and so on. By having the actual Smithsonian’s National Museum of patent drawing of the Bradley & Hubbard American History, Kenneth E. Behring lamp, I was able to put each lamp back to- Center also has a complete set of indexes gether the right way.” to patents, as well as the patents them- Stamm’s work on the Bradley & Hub- selves, on microfilm, which Stamm used. bard story has been outside his official From 1856 to 1934, Bradley & Hubbard duties. He has purchased and donated all took out more than 200 different patents. but six of the Castle’s 133 Bradley & Hub- About 140 were for mechanical improve- bard artifacts, which include 14 kerosene ments in basic lamp designs: for example, lamps—about half of which have been better ways to raise a wick; gauges for electrified—two chandeliers, three measuring how much oil was left in a sconces and 28 candlesticks. lamp’s reservoir; a ridge stamped in the Along the way, he has carefully pre- metal to keep oil from spilling over; even served his research, complete with conve- the arrangements of holes in flame nient digests he has written to make the spreaders. often lengthy and abstruse language of “The research was a two-step process,” patent applications more accessible. Stamm says. “First, I would scan through Five years ago, it occurred to Stamm the indexes searching for Bradley & Hub- that he might have the makings of a book. bard patents. Inventors were frequently Working on it now, he intends to one day Bradley & Hubbard employees, and they publish his work as a comprehensive would assign the patent rights to the com- guide to the many stylish kerosene lamps pany. I often had to do cross-referencing. that once illuminated homes and offices Then, once I had the number, I could across America. ❖

INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 9 ASTROPHYSICS Astronomers create chart to ID life-bearing planets in distant star systems

By Christine Pulliam Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

rom outer space, no other planet in our solar system Spectral signatures resembles Earth, the blue planet. Our atmosphere, Different atmospheric gases leave specific spectral signatures or oceans and green, plant-covered continents reflect the fingerprints, both visible and infrared, on the light reflected and F light of the sun in a unique spectrum of colors. Earth emitted from a planet. By collecting this light and splitting it into also emits invisible infrared radiation. Should astronomers on a rainbow spectrum of colors (as a prism does), astronomers can Earth one day spy a planet in some distant star system with a simi- determine which gases are present in a planet’s atmosphere. lar profile, they might say the existence of life on this new world is “By looking at a planet’s atmosphere, we can search for signs the best explanation. that the air has been altered by living organisms,” Kaltenegger Building upon this simple concept, astronomers Lisa Kalteneg- explains. “Since Earth is the only known planet with life, we ger, Wesley Traub and Kenneth Jucks of the Harvard-Smithsonian studied the history of Earth’s atmosphere to learn what signs to Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., have created a new seek on other worlds,” she adds. guide by which astronomers can identify planets in other solar Although current space telescopes are unable to examine the systems that may contain life. The guide is based on computer faint light from planets in distant solar systems, future instru- models that calculate how the reflected light and emitted radia- ments will have that capability. The work of Kaltenegger, Traub tion of the Earth appears from trillions of miles away and just and Jucks is in anticipation of that day. Many astronomers believe how that spectrum has changed during the Earth’s geologic past. the search for extraterrestrial life will meet with success in the next 10 to 20 years. To find other life-bearing worlds, astronomers plan to first look

Left: Earth’s early atmosphere of nitrogen, methane and carbon dioxide was hostile to life as we know it, but friendly to the first methane-loving bacteria.This artist’s rendering shows Earth 4 billion years ago, before conti- nents formed and while our planet still suffered bombard- ment from asteroids and comets left over from the solar system’s formation. (David Aguilar image)

Opposite: Lisa Kaltenegger peers through the eyepiece of a tele- scope at the Harvard-Smithso- nian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. (Photo by Christine Pulliam)

10 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 “The first extraterrestrial life we discover may be just slimes, molds and bacteria,” Kaltenegger says.

in distant solar systems for oceans and began emitting large planets in Earthlike orbits amounts of oxygen into the around their stars. These or- air. The oxygen reacted with bits are in what as- methane, clearing away tronomers call “habitable most of that gas. It also zones”—areas around a suffocated many of the star where the tempera- anaerobic bacteria that ture allows for the pres- had ruled the world until ence of water in a liquid that time. Soon, blue- state. green algae became the To get its start, life on new dominant life form and Earth required both land Earth’s atmosphere gained its and liquid water. So re- first free oxygen. Two billion searchers will be on the lookout years ago, Earth’s oxygen revolu- for small, rocky planets orbiting in tion was fully under way. a “habitable zone” around a star. “When aerobic bacteria displaced anaerobic bacteria as the dominant life Methane form, they introduced oxygen to Earth’s atmos- In creating their models, the scientists also took into phere,” says Traub, who also works at NASA’s Jet consideration that Earth’s spectral profile has changed dramati- Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “That oxygen made cally in the past 4.5 billion years. Today, the air we breathe con- multicellular life, including human life, possible. sists of about three-fourths nitrogen and one-fourth oxygen. Four billion years ago, no oxygen was present. Instead, Earth’s Complex, diverse atmosphere was a blend of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and hydro- “If an extrasolar planet is found with a spectrum similar to one gen sulfide that would be toxic to humans. Yet life arose and of our models, we potentially could characterize that planet’s ge- flourished in this early atmosphere. ological state, its habitability and the degree to which life has Earth’s first inhabitants were anaerobic bacteria—organisms evolved on it,” Traub continues. that can live without oxygen. Those bacteria pumped large On Earth, life continued to evolve from blue-green algae to more amounts of methane into the planet’s atmosphere, changing it complex organisms, yielding the great diversity of species now pre- significantly. If anaerobic bacteria exist on another planet, future sent on this planet. Some scientists are skeptical that life forms as space missions might detect a methane fingerprint in the planet’s complex as those found on Earth exist elsewhere in the galaxy. atmosphere. “The first extraterrestrial life we discover may be just slimes, But natural processes like volcanism also can inject methane molds and bacteria,” Kaltenegger says. into the air, Kaltenegger cautions. “Methane itself is not an un- Nevertheless, discovering life elsewhere in the universe surely ambiguous sign of life. But detecting both methane and oxygen would count as one of the greatest and most profound moments at the same time is an excellent biosignature.” in human history. “Looking up at the night sky and knowing that planets like Oxygen ours, complete with life, exist out there somewhere would for- About 2.5 billion years ago, drastic changes permanently shifted ever change our view of the universe,” Kaltenegger says. “The sky Earth’s atmospheric balance. Blue-green algae appeared in the would be even richer because we could start to investigate what

INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 11 news and notes

Asia Trail. The Fujifilm Giant Panda manufacturer. Included in the list are air- Habitat and Asia Trail, a 6-acre, $52 mil- planes, gliders, hang-gliders, helicopters, lion exhibition area, opened in October at autogiros and ornithopters. Not included the Smithsonian’s National Zoological are lighter-than-air craft and remotely pi- Park. Providing a newly expanded home loted aircraft. for seven of the Zoo’s Asian animal species—giant pandas, sloth bears, fishing New Guinea expedition. Scholarly es- cats, clouded leopards, red pandas, Asian says addressing a 1926 Dutch and Ameri- small-clawed otters and Japanese giant can expedition to New Guinea have been salamanders—the Fujifilm Giant Panda placed online by Smithsonian Institution Habitat and Asia Trail incorporate enrich- Libraries as part of its new series Smithso- ment activities that stimulate each animal’s nian Libraries Digital Editions: Sources natural behavior. The new exhibition high- Red panda in its habitat at the National and Critical Interpretations. “By Aero- lights Zoo research and conservation ac- Zoo’s Asia Trail (Photo by Jessie Cohen) plane to Pygmyland: Revisiting the 1926 tivities through interactive kiosks, inter- Dutch and American Expedition to New pretive hands-on learning stations, videos and Space Museum, which features 150 Guinea” features interpretive essays by and other state-of-the-art methods. well-known objects from the American Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Museum collection. The Ameri- Rocky at Smithsonian. In a December can History Museum, currently closed for ceremony in Washington, D.C., film- a renovation, will reopen in mid-2008. maker Sylvester Stallone donated objects from his Academy Award-winning Crozet remains. At the request of offi- “Rocky” films to the Smithsonian’s Na- cials from Virginia Military Institute, the tional Museum of American History, remains of Claudius Crozet (1790-1864), Kenneth E. Behring Center. Stallone do- noted French engineer and scientist nated the boxing robe Rocky Balboa wore buried on the VMI campus in Lexington, to the climactic fight with Apollo Creed were recently examined by Douglas in 1976’s “Rocky”; a black hat and a pair Owsley, a physical anthropologist at the of boxing gloves from “Rocky II” (1979); Smithsonian’s National Museum of Nat- and a pair of boxing shorts and shoes ural History. Crozet’s remains, contained from “Rocky III” in a cast-iron coffin, were exhumed so (1982). These items they could be moved to a new location on are now on display in VMI’s campus. They revealed Crozet was the “Treasures of about 5 feet, 10 inches tall and had mild American History” arthritis, herniated discs and abscesses in exhibition at the three teeth. Hair, brain and bone tissue A Dayak man with a shield, from the “By National Air samples were taken for further analysis. Aeroplane to Pygmyland”Web site

Airplane directory. An expanded online History Anthropologist Paul Taylor about version of the “Smithsonian National Air this expedition. The essays are accompa- and Space Museum Directory of Airplanes, nied by diaries from the American partic- Their Designers and Manufacturers” is ipants, expedition records, more than 700 newly available on the Internet at the ad- photographs and two hours of film dress: siris-thesauri.si.edu. This free guide footage, accessible at the Internet address: Boxing shoes worn by Rocky Balboa in serves as a single authoritative listing of www.sil.si.edu/expeditions/1926/. “Rocky III” (Photo by Hugh Talman) aircraft names organized by designer and

12 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 Biting bugs no match for poison frog’s toxic skin cientists have long realized that the He first coated an ultra-thin silicone S toxic chemicals produced by the skin membrane with PTX 251D and placed it glands of poison frogs serve to protect over a mosquito food source— sugar wa- these amphibians from predators that try ter. Most mosquitoes that landed on the to eat them. Recent research by Paul Wel- membrane to feed turned over onto their don, a biologist at the Smithsonian Na- backs and slowly flailed their legs, or their tional Zoological Park’s Conservation and legs fell off entirely, an effect known as leg Research Center in Front Royal, Va., and autonomy, and they died. colleagues has revealed these toxins also In a second experiment, Weldon con- Poison frog Dendrobates pumilio from Bo- protect the frogs from mosquitoes, biting fined the mosquitoes inside a narrow cas del Toro, Panama (Ralph Saporito photo) flies and other disease-carrying insects. pipette into which he inserted a wire In the study, Weldon collaborated with coated with PTX 251D, forcing the mos- secticide at concentrations well below John Daly and Thomas Spande of the Lab- quitoes to stay in contact with the wire for those that occur naturally in poison frogs. oratory of Bio-organic Chemistry at the three minutes. Weldon used different Weldon credits the wire contact tech- National Institutes of Health, both of concentrations of PTX 251D in this ex- nique—which he developed at the De- whom have devoted decades to identifying periment to try to estimate at what level partment of Entomology at the Walter chemical toxins from poison-dart and of concentration the poison-frog alkaloid Reed Army Institute of Research—with other frogs. Experiments using these com- induces toxicosis in mosquitoes. his ability to test compounds that are only pounds have been limited because of the These results demonstrated that PTX available in small amounts. small amounts of material available. 251D deters yellow fever mosquitoes from “This is the first microscale toxicity test Weldon tested the effects of one of these feeding and induces toxicosis with con- for insects that I am aware of,” Weldon compounds, pumiliotoxin 251D, or PTX tact, as evidenced by impaired flight and says. “It may be useful in demonstrating 251D, on yellow fever mosquitoes (Aedes leg autonomy. The researchers also the insecticidal properties of other com- aegypti) raised in laboratory colonies. learned that PTX 251D is an effective in- pounds.” —John Barrat

Scientist urge controls on poultry imports to help stop spread of avian flu H5N1

ince the first outbreaks of the strain of avian influenza known Peter Marra, an avian ecologist with the Smithsonian National S as H5N1 appeared in Hong Kong, scientists have debated how Zoological Park’s Migratory Bird Center, who worked on the re- to stop the spread of the disease, which has appeared in port. The research team, led by Marm Kilpatrick, a scien- more than 50 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa. tist at the CCM and a Smithsonian research associate, The ’ bird flu surveillance program set out to identify how the disease has spread has focused primarily on migratory birds flying through Asia, Europe and Africa. The scientists from Asia to Alaska, but new research published analyzed the risk of introduction along three in December by scientists from the Smithsonian, pathways: poultry, trade in wild birds and the New York-based Consortium for Conserva- migrating birds. tion Medicine and the United Kingdom’s Royal The findings, published in the Proceedings of Society for the Protection of Birds reports that the National Academy of Sciences, showed that bird flu is most likely to be introduced to coun- the combination of poultry trade and migratory tries in the Western Hemisphere through in- bird movements spread H5N1 much further fected poultry. Imported chickens may spread than it would have traveled by either of these Birds migrating from Siberia are much less likely avian flu to the Western pathways alone. The report recommends “strict to introduce bird flu to the United States than infected Hemisphere. controls or a ban on the importation of poultry and wild birds flying from countries in Central and South wild birds into the Americas and stronger enforcement to America, which import hundreds of thousands of chickens annually curb illegal trade.” Canada, Mexico and several countries in South from European and Asian countries where bird flu has been found. America regularly import hundreds of thousands of day-old chicks “We need to make sure that we are preparing developing from other regions where bird flu is circulating, Marra says. countries in this hemisphere for an outbreak of avian flu,” says —Alex di Giovanni

INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 13 books and recordings

In the Beginning: Bibles Before the women played a central role in the develop- $26.95). The only book that, by looking Year 1000, edited by Michelle Brown ment of language and social life and the cre- backward, finds the key to the potential cli- (Collins, 2006, $45). A sumptuously illus- ation of materials, such as clothing and nets. mate disasters facing humanity. trated volume featuring a rare assemblage of fragile biblical treasures—the physical Crazy ‘08: How a Cast of Cranks, Classic Canadian Songs from Smith- evidence for the earliest copies of scrip- Rogues, Boneheads and Magnates sonian Folkways ( tures. Companion to a major exhibition at Created the Greatest Year in Baseball Recordings, 2006, $15). Thirty classic tracks the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. History, by Cait Murphy (Collins, 2007, that showcase the rich musical traditions of $24.95). A rollercoaster ride through the generations of European settlers. Jamestown, Québec, Sante Fe:Three wildest year America’s game has ever seen. North American Beginnings, edited by When the Soul is Settled: Music of James Kelly and Barbara Clark Smith Indigenous Motivations: Recent Ac- Iraq (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, (Collins, 2007, $34.95). The official com- quisitions from the National Museum 2006, $15). Improvisations by Rahim Alhaj panion book to the nationally touring exhi- of the American Indian (National Mu- on the oud, a Middle Eastern lute—a bition commemorating the 400th anniver- seum of the American Indian, 2006, proud tradition’s meeting with modernity. sary of the founding of Jamestown in 1607, $19.99). Essays about and images and de- Québec in 1608 and Sante Fe in 1609. scriptions of some of the most important Friends of Old Time Music (Smithso- and intriguing works made by Native artists nian Folkways Recordings, 2006, $29.95). Identity by Design: Tradition and and craftsman in recent decades. A three-CD set of live recordings taken Innovation in Native American from a trailblazing series of concerts held Dresses, (Collins, 2007, $24.95). A stun- U.S. Air Force: A Complete History, by in New York City between 1961 and 1965. ning book of illustrations and essays show- Dik A. Daso (Hugh Lauter Levin Associ- casing the clothing of Native American ates Inc., 2006, $75). A definitive and richly Books listed on Pages 14 and 15 can be or- women and the forces of tradition and illustrated chronology of the U.S. Air Force dered through online book vendors or pur- change in their lives. from Civil War-era Army ballooning to chased in bookstores nationwide. cruise missiles over Afghanistan and Iraq. The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the Recordings can be ordered from Smithso- True Role of Women in Prehistory, by Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, nian Folkways Mail Order, Smithsonian J.M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer and Jake Page the Mass Extinctions of the Past and Folkways Recordings Dept. 0607, Washing- (Collins, 2007, $26.95). An exciting new What They Can Tell Us About Our Fu- ton, D.C. 20073-0607. To order by phone, look at prehistory, which argues that ture, by Peter D. Ward (Collins, 2007, call (800) 410-9815 or (202) 275-1143.

14 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 off the shelf

A Danish Photographer can Indian icons. They can be viewed as the late 1800s and into the very studio social documents of the -Ban- where many Native Americans sought out of Indians: nock people at a particular time in history the photographer. In addition to Wren- and as records of local, family or individual sted, Scherer explores the lives of a num- Benedicte Wrensted history,” Scherer writes. ber of her sitters—both Native American This beautifully designed volume repro- and Anglo American. By Joanna Cohan Scherer (University of duces a substantial number of Wrensted’s One individual Scherer focuses on is Oklahoma Press, 2006, $29.95) photographs, along with a detailed de- Bannock tribal member Pat Tyhee, who scription of each image, including the Wrensted photographed in either 1898 or ith the publication of A Danish names of the subjects, their biographical 1899, in two photos, one in his Indian W Photographer of Idaho Indians: data and an ethnographic analysis of their clothing and the other in European-style Benedicte Wrensted, author Joanna Cohan Native attire. clothing, showing his self-identification Scherer pulls back the cloak of obscurity in both worlds. from the life and achievements of a truly Another of the many poignant pho- remarkable female photographer. Danish- tographs in the book is of a group of born Benedicte Wrensted (1859-1949), men wearing Native who, in 1895, at age 35, emigrated from ornaments. One of the men, George to southeast Idaho, created an Edmo, proudly wears for the photograph invaluable and fascinating photographic the same hairpipe-and-brass-bead neck- record of the Northern Shoshone, Lemhi lace that his father, Arimo, owned and and Bannock tribes of American Indians had worn when he was photographed who live at the Fort Hall Indian Reserva- years earlier. tion near Pocatello, Idaho. “Today, images by Benedicte Wrensted “Putting a woman back into American are in many Shoshone-Bannock homes, photographic history is in itself sufficient and the stories they bring to mind are re- reason for resurrecting the photography lated and passed on to the next genera- of Benedicte Wrensted,” Scherer writes in tion,” former Shoshone-Bannock Tribes the book’s foreword. “She represents the Museum Director Bonnie Wuttunee- large number of women photographers of Wadsworth writes in the book’s introduc- American Indians whom history has not The book cover shows Eddie Drink, an tion. “Today, the pictures have a new cul- treated kindly with remembrance.” Eastern Shoshone, photographed between tural significance. In them, the Shoshone- Wrensted enjoyed many years as a com- 1910 and 1912 by Benedicte Wrensted Bannock have found the faces of their mercial photographer in Pocatello, where forebears.” local residents, both Anglo and Native The book represents years of meticu- At age 53 in 1912, Wrensted ended her American, came to her studio to sit for lous detective work that involved library career as a photographer and moved to formal portraits. For the American Indi- and archival research, interviewing Wren- California where she built a house in the ans, her photographs document a period sted’s relatives, as well as the descendants Hollywood Hills. She left no diary and no of rapid cultural transition. of her Native American sitters. “I have records, only a collection of photographs In this scholarly book, Scherer, an an- pieced together a picture of the photogra- widely distributed in private and public thropologist and former illustrations re- pher and her intentions,” Scherer writes, hands. Through nearly two decades of re- searcher with the Smithsonian National “...and the cultural, historical and ideo- search, Joanna Scherer has secured for Museum of Natural History’s Handbook of logical contexts in which the photographs these treasures their proper place of North American Indians, reveals the impor- were taken and later viewed.” recognition and importance in the visual tance of Wrensted’s photographs in a num- Readers of A Danish Photographer of history of the United States. ber of areas. “They can be appreciated as Idaho Indians: Benedicte Wrensted travel —Daniel Friend visual art—as evocative symbols of Ameri- back to the railroad town of Pocatello in

INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH · WINTER 2007 15 new to the collections

Mitten crab from Chesapeake may indicate an expanding East Coast population

ooks like a big weird spider,” to be an expert in mitten crab bi- L Maryland waterman John ology and culture from Delp recalled thinking to him- Shanghai Fisheries University self as he hauled up a strange- in China, also is consulting looking crab in June 2006 at on the project. the mouth of the Patapsco How Delp’s mitten crab ar- River in the Chesapeake Bay. rived in the United States is a He froze the creature and later, at mystery. Scientists suspect it may the Smithsonian Environmental Re- have arrived as planktonic larva in the search Center in Edgewater, Md., it ballast water of a cargo ship. This the- was positively identified as a Chinese mit- was found in San Francisco Bay in 1992. ory is supported by the fact that the busy ten crab—so called because its claws are Today, their range has expanded through- Port of Baltimore is on the Patapsco River. covered with tiny setae, or hairs. Scientific out hundreds of miles of the San Fran- It also may have been smuggled into this name: Eriocheir sinensis. cisco Bay and its tributaries. country from Asia. Scientists were alarmed. Was this an iso- Digging into stream banks, damaging For now, Delp’s crab is in a jar of alcohol lated individual or one from a previously fishing nets, clogging water pumps and in the invertebrate collections of the Smith- undetected population of mitten crabs eating native vegetation, mitten crabs sonian’s National Museum of Natural His- now living and expanding in the bay? have become a serious pest in the San tory in Washington, D.C. An alert has been Native to Korea and China, thousands Francisco area. For the Chesapeake and its issued to Chesapeake Bay watermen for any of tons of mitten crabs are harvested in watershed, the crab may pose the same other catches of mitten crabs. Should more Asia each year for food. Delp’s catch, how- threat, says SERC Ecologist Greg Ruiz. mitten crabs be pulled from the Chesa- ever, was the first of this invasive species to “We are now working with the Maryland peake, DNA taken from these first speci- be reported in the Chesapeake. Following Department of Natural Resources to con- mens can help determine if the crabs are local news coverage of the crab, a second duct further surveys and monitor the up- related and possibly initial members of an specimen was turned in by a local water- per Chesapeake and its tributaries,” says expanding East Coast population. man and confirmed to be a mitten crab. SERC Director Tuck Hines. Yongxu Cheng, —John Barrat On the West Coast, a single mitten crab a visiting researcher at SERC who happens

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number 15 · winter 2007