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Life at the Limits: Stories of Amazing Species Opens April 4 2 News at the Museum 3 Member Magazine Spring 2015 Vol. 40 No. 2 life at the limits: Stories of Amazing Species opens april 4 2 News at the Museum 3 From the Solve a Science-Based Mystery Designed by Teens On December 10, 2014, the Museum’s Board of technology, engineering, and mathematics) President Trustees voted unanimously to create a new facility education, and enhancing science literacy among on the Museum’s west side, near Columbus Avenue the general public. To do so, it will house some of Ellen V. Futter at 79th Street. To be named the Richard Gilder the most thrilling and high-tech exhibits, theaters, Center for Science, Education, and Innovation after laboratories, classrooms, teaching facilities, Trustee and longtime benefactor Richard Gilder, collections, and gathering spaces anywhere. the new facility will meet many of the Museum’s In addition, as those of you who have visited programmatic and visitor needs in an era of recently know, the Museum is nearly bursting at scientific advancement, educational priorities, the seams, with yearly attendance having grown and burgeoning technology. to approximately 5 million. Navigation and It has become increasingly apparent that improved visitor services are continuing challenges the expression of the Museum’s mission in that the new Gilder Center, which will connect to the 21st century calls for new kinds of facilities the existing facility, will help to address. that are even more immersive, integrated, and We hope to unveil the Gilder Center during the technologically advanced. With the new Gilder Museum’s 150th year, 2019–2020. In the meantime, Center, the Museum will sustain its long-standing I look forward to updating you as we proceed with leadership in science and education, particularly in the planning and design for this exciting new the areas of cutting-edge research, STEM (science, addition to the Museum campus. Table of Contents Hunting tool or murder weapon? High school students Monica Chhay and Sarah Carrillo show a visitor how to use a smartphone to create virtual Neanderthal tools. News 3 The Museum’s Sackler Educational Laboratory is looking for a few good Sackler Educational Laboratory Neanderthal detectives—and you just might fit the bill. Close-Up 4 Earlier this year, 19 high school seniors from Millennium Brooklyn High The Museum’s Sackler Educational Laboratory 4 6 School wrapped up a 14-week program in which they worked with a science for Comparative Genomics and Human Origins Death-Defying Feats 6 advisor and Museum staff to develop an interactive experience for family visitors is a state-of-the-art interactive lab. based on cutting-edge research and rooted in the Spitzer Hall of Human Origins To help test “CSN: Crime Scene Neanderthal,” Curators’ Picks 10 and the Sackler Educational Laboratory. Drawing on the latest findings about our join Museum staff and seniors from Millennium relatives Homo neanderthalensis, it even has a ready-for-prime-time name: CSN: Brooklyn High School in the Sackler Educational The Imitators 12 Crime Scene Neanderthal. Lab on Saturdays and Sundays, from April 11 to Family visitors who participate in CSN will be led by student interns, armed June 6. Come ready to pursue prehistoric clues! Next 14 with a paper guide and a mobile app, to explore both virtual and cast Neanderthal The Sackler Educational Lab is located on the fossils to solve a science-based mystery. It’s part of an experimental approach to first floor, inside the Spitzer Hall of Human Origins. Behind the Scenes in Collections 20 engaging youth in science learning by challenging students to co-design a unique It is free for Members and open on Saturdays and Museum experiences for families. Sundays from noon to 5 pm. Inside View 22 10 20 “CSN is both a fantastic opportunity for the students and a 21st-century learning experience for Museum visitors,” says Barry Joseph, the Museum’s associate director for digital learning. “CSN helps us explore what digital layers—like mobile The Museum greatly acknowledges games, augmented reality, access to real-time information, and more—can add to a The Mortimer D. Sackler Foundation, Inc. young visitor’s engagement with scientific content within the Museum.” for its support to establish The Sackler Brain In April and May, Members will have a chance to experience the program Bench, part of the Museum’s Sackler Educational firsthand when the student developers return to the Museum to test the Laboratory for Comparative Genomics and Human prototype with the public, guiding groups of families and youth to dioramas and Origins, in the Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, microscopes to unravel such puzzles as: how do we know a Neanderthal’s hair offering ongoing programs and resources for American Museum of Natural History ISSN 0194-6110 Chairman Lewis W. Bernard USPS Permit #472-650 color? What can clues tell us about Neanderthal culture? What killed off this adults, teachers, and students to illuminate the President Ellen V. Futter Vol. 40, No. 2, Spring 2015 recent human relative? (See the sidebar for details on how you can participate.) extraordinary workings of the human brain. Senior Vice President of Institutional Advancement, Rotunda is published quarterly by the Membership Office of the American “This interactive experience will add new content to the hall and show visitors Strategic Planning, and Education Lisa J. Gugenheim Museum of Natural History, 15 West 77 Street, New York, NY 10024-5192. that science is a dynamic process with new information emerging all the time,” The 14-week student program and spring Director of Membership Louise Adler Phone: 212-769-5606. Website: amnh.org. Museum membership of $75 per says Julia Zichello, manager of the Sackler Educational Lab. “CSN more directly internships are supported by a generous grant from year and higher includes a subscription to Rotunda. ©2015 American Museum links the hall to the hands-on experience in the lab.” The Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation. Magazine of Natural History. Periodical postage paid at New York, NY and at additional Coming soon from another student digital learning project: MicroRangers, a Editor Eugenia V. Levenson mailing offices. Postmaster: please send address changes to Rotunda, Contributors Joan Kelly Bernard, Ian Chant, Jill Hamilton, Membership Office, AMNH, at the above address. mobile game to solve problems related to microbial organisms, biodiversity, and Additional support for the development of the Karen Miller, Elena Sansalone human health, that will launch this fall as the Museum opens a special exhibition “CSN” prototype was provided by Miguel and Grace Design Hinterland, www.hinterlandstudio.com Please send questions, ideas, and feedback to [email protected]. on the human microbiome. Hennessy and The Margarita and John Hennessy Photo 5 © AMNH/D. Finnin; photo 6 Oxford Scientific/Photolibrary/Getty Images; photo 12 © Image Source/Corbis; photo 20 © AMNH/R. Mickens © AMNH/R. 20 photo Source/Corbis; Image © 12 photo Images; Scientific/Photolibrary/Getty Oxford 6 photo Finnin; AMNH/D. © 5 Photo © AMNH/M. Shanley Family Foundation. Rotunda / Spring 2015 / AMNH.org 4 Close-Up at the Museum 5 Tools in the Field Sense and Sensibility In the quest for better prediction, volcanologists A Shark’s Sense The electrosensory ampullae of Lorenzini were use satellites to spot telltale signs, such as first discovered by Marcello Malpighi, an Italian bulges in a volcanic mountainside or rising The flattened head of the hammerhead shark (family Sphrynidae) is more than biologist in Bologna, Italy, in the 1660s. In 1678, temperatures registered in infrared wavelengths. just a distinctive feature: it’s the anatomical structure behind these animals’ the Florentine physician Stefano Lorenzini won Tilt meters also detect changes in slope, while extraordinary sensory capabilities. naming rights by describing the organs in detail, seismometers track earthquake tremors as Hammerheads depend on some of the same senses as humans. Their broad, although he speculated that ampullae were magma ascends and the tremors creep closer flat head, known as a cephalofoil, enhances several of these, including vision and mucus ducts. Over the next 300 years, until Dutch to the surface. Instruments on planes, trucks, smell. Wide-set eyes provide a better visual range, allowing the hammerhead researchers finally determined their function, or positioned by scientists on the edge of a crater to see above and below it on both sides, and the spacing of the far-apart nostrils ampullae were believed at various times to sense measure gas content. helps the shark determine the direction from which a scent originates. touch, pressure, salinity, and temperature. Maneuvering around a marine habitat, hammerheads have also developed ways Most Common Volcano to detect key signals, including vibrations, currents, and changes in water pressure. A Distinctive Family There are many types of volcanoes, but the most And when they hunt, they use their electrosensory ability to locate prey. The family Sphyrnidae includes 10 species of common is the cinder cone, in which an explosive How? Even small muscle movements generate bio-electrical signals, which hammerheads worldwide, only three of which eruption of gas sends runny lava (runny because are amplified in an aquatic environment. A hammerhead can detect these (the scalloped, great, and smooth) pose any of low silica-content) flying from a volcanic impulses with sensory organs called ampullae of Lorenzini. The ampullae are danger to humans. The Carolina hammerhead vent. The fragments cool, harden, and fall to the Left: Pumice, catalog no. 5584 composed of clusters of pores concentrated around the shark’s mouth and along (Sphyrna gilberti) is the most recently described ground, accumulating around the vent in a cone Right: Basalt, catalog no. 1703 its front that are lined with hair-like cells that send signals to the brain when species (2013). The great (Sphyrna mokarran) shape. Most volcanoes of this type are small, stimulated.
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