Explore an amazing variety of tree forms using pencil and paper in beautiful Mount Auburn Cemetery with Harvard Museum of Natural History instructor Erica Beade on Saturday, May 9, from 9 – 11. Students will focus on capturing the shapes and volume of trunks and branches and on learning techniques for drawing foliage. All skill levels are welcome. $35 for Harvard Museum of Natural History members, $40 for nommembers. Register online at http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/adult_classes/index.php.
Tahiti, Bermuda, Madeira, Bali. Everyone loves islands, but no one loves them more than an evolutionary biologist. From the dwarf elephants of Crete to the carnivorous caterpillars of Hawaii and the snaggly-fingered aye-aye of Madagascar, islands present a cornucopia of biodiversity. Darwin drew much of his inspiration from island stopovers on his fabled Beagle voyage, as did Alfred Russel Wallace on his own perambulations through the East Indies. Ever since Darwin and Wallace jointly proposed their theory of evolution by natural selection, biologists have returned to islands to gain fresh insights. Jonathan Losos, Monique and Philip Lehner Professor for the Study of Latin America, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Curator in Herpetology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, will discuss the relevance of islands to our understanding of evolution and its processes on Thursday, April 23 at 6 pm at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free and open to the public. Free parking is also available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.
For more than four decades, Michael J. Balick, Vice President for Botanical Science at the New York Botanical Garden, has studied the relationships between plants and people — the field known as ethnobotany — in the Amazon Valley, Central and South America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and most recently in Micronesia and Melanesia. In this Tuesday, April 14 lecture beginning at 6 pm he will discuss the relevance of working with indigenous cultures to document their knowledge of medicinal plants and evaluate their potential for broader applications. He will also highlight some of the medicinal plants used by non-Western cultures, such as ashwagandha and maca, which are becoming available and popular in the West and are discussed in his most recent book, Rodale’s 21st Century Herbal: A Practical Guide for Healthy Living Using Nature’s Most Powerful Plants.
This free Harvard Museum on Natural History lecture and book signing will be held at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.
Join the Harvard Museum of Natural History on Thursday, April 9 at 6 pm for another in its Evolution Matters Lecture Series. Melanie L. J. Stiassny, Axelrod Research Curator of Fishes at the American Museum of Natural History, will speak on Evolution in a Vortex: Fish Diversity in the Lower Congo River. The talk will take place in the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge.
Some of the most spectacular cataracts, falls, and gorges on Earth are found in the lower Congo River, in the heart of central Africa, near the twin Congolese capitals of Kinshasa and Brazzaville. This stretch of the river is also home to over 300 different species of fish, many with unique adaptations—including bizarre morphologies—that enable them to survive in an environment with intense rapids. Based on her many years collecting, documenting, and studying the fish in the lower Congo River, Melanie Stiassny will discuss the river’s unique hydrological and geographical characteristics and their role in driving the evolution and diversification of its exceptional fish fauna.
The Evolution Matters Lecture Series is supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit. Free and open to the public. Free parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.
Explore the beauty and variety of plant forms using pencil, watercolor, and colored pencil with instructor Erica Beade. This four-week course, to be held on Saturdays from April 4 – 25, 9:30 – 11:30 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, will introduce botanical drawing techniques through close observation and practice with contour, gesture, foreshortening, shading, and color. All skill levels are welcome. Fee is $95 for HMNH members, $110 for nonmembers. Advance registration required at http://reservations.hmsc.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=11.
John H. Shaw, Chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harry C. Dudley Professor of Structural and Economic Geology, and Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, will speak on North America’s Shale Gas Resources on Tuesday, March 10 beginning at 6 pm, in a program sponsored by the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
Over the last decade, natural gas extracted from shale rock formations (shale gas) has become an important source of energy in North America. These abundant natural gas resources offer tremendous economic potential and are reshaping the landscape of energy production, including fossil, nuclear, and renewable energy options. Natural gas is also the lowest-emission fossil energy option available today. However, like other energy options, shale gas development has potential adverse impacts on our environment. John Shaw will discuss where and how shale gas resources are found, the geologic processes responsible for their formation, and the economic and environmental impacts associated with their extraction and use. This free public program will be held at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage. For more information visit http://hmnh.harvard.edu/event/north-americas-shale-gas-resources-energy-and-environmental-perspectives.
Pamela Soltis, Distinguished Professor and Curator, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, will speak on Thursday, March 5 at 6 pm on The Revolution in Plant Evolution.
Today’s digital technologies enable museums to “unlock†their cabinets and share their treasures online. Pamela Soltis will discuss the way in which access to digital data and images of natural history collections is becoming a game changer in the understanding of plant evolution. From enabling novel research on plant genetics, to highlighting the roles plants play in nature and how they respond to climate change, museum collections are a key resource, particularly when studying plants that are rare, hard to collect, endangered, or extinct.
The Evolution Matters Lecture Series is supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit. This free program will take place at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.
Who would guess that parrots are closely related to songbirds, or that falcons are only distantly related to their look-alikes, hawks and eagles? How is it that hummingbirds have the rare ability (in the avian world) to detect sweet tastes? Explore the newly renovated Birds of the World gallery with Harvard doctoral students Allison Shultz and Maude Baldwin and consider the suite of adaptations that allows birds to live across the globe, even in the most extreme environments. Hear about the role of genomics in deciphering the bird family tree, the surprising relationships this has revealed, and the special abilities birds have evolved that help them exploit their environment. This Harvard Museum of Natural History adult education class will be held Saturday, March 7 from 9:30 – noon at the Museum, 26 Oxford Street in Cambridge. Fee: $35 Museum members/$40 nonmembers. Advance registration required. Register online at http://reservations.hmsc.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=11.
Whales have long been valued as a source of oil and whalebone. Treated as a commodity throughout history, they are increasingly recognized for their complex forms of communication, even culture, and the ecological role they play in the ocean. Joe Roman, Sarah and Daniel Hrdy Fellow in Conservation Biology, Harvard University, and Fellow at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at University of Vermont, will discuss the history and future of whales in the world’s oceans, drawing from historical archives, DNA analyses, ecological studies of whale carcasses in the deep sea, and the effects of whale fecal plumes on ocean productivity. He will explain why conserving great whales is essential for the welfare of marine ecosystems. This Harvard Museum of Natural History lecture and book signing on Tuesday, February 17 beginning at 6 pm is free and open to the public. The event will be held in the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge, and free event parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.
Brown ash trees sustain the ancestral basket-making traditions of the Wabanaki people of Maine and play a key role in their creation myths. These trees are now threatened by the emerald ash borer, a beetle that has already killed millions of ash trees in the eastern United States. Wabanaki tribes and basket makers (see basket image below from Hood Museum at Dartmouth) have joined forces with foresters, university researchers, and landowners to develop and deploy actions aimed at preventing an invasion by this insect. Anthropologist Darren Ranco, PhD, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of Native American Research, University of Maine discusses how the stakeholders involved in this interdisciplinary effort are making use of sustainability science and drawing from Wabanaki forms of diplomacy to influence state and federal responses to the emerald ash borer, and prevent the demise of the ash trees that are so central to Wabanaki culture. The program will take place on Tuesday, November 18, from 7 – 8 at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge, and is sponsored by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, in collaboration with the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture. Visit the exhibits in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and the Harvard Museum of Natural History, open for special evening hours following the lecture. Free event parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage. Free and open to the public.
