Smithsonian Science » New Acquisitions

National Park Service natural history collections transferred to care of the Smithsonian

John Barrat — Tue, 01 May 2012 11:34:22 +0000

The National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution have announced a new partnership to share responsibility for selected National Park Service natural history collections, making them more readily available to researchers through the Smithsonian.

Collections will continue to be owned by the National Park Service but will be in the permanent custodial care of the Smithsonian Institution. The agreement formalizing the relationship was signed today by National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis and the Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for Science Eva J. Pell at the National Museum of Natural History.

Photo right: Jon Jarvis, Director of the National Park Service, and Eva Pell, Under Secretary for Science at the Smithsonian sign an MOU between the two organizations. The partnership gives broader access to National Park Service collections through the Smithsonian’s care and management of them. (Johnny Gibbons photo)

“This agreement benefits science, the American people, and the long-standing and historic relationship between our two organizations,” said Jarvis. “Together we are building a collection that will become an extraordinary tool for the scientific community to study biodiversity, evolution, and the distinctive character of national park ecosystems.”

The Smithsonian echoed the significance of the new agreement. “Two venerable institutions long known for protecting the nation’s heritage, are now working together to enhance care and access to specimens that document the natural environment of our national parks,” said Eva Pell, under secretary for science at the Smithsonian.

Examples of National Park Service collections that the Smithsonian could curate under the new agreement are:

138 holotypes – a specimen described in scientific literature to establish a new species – that researchers in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina have discovered and described over the past 14 years.

From George Washington Memorial Parkway in Virginia, 3,000 vascular plant specimens representing 1,326 species, as well as a wide range of specimens from the Potomac River Gorge, including holotypes of shoreflies, caddisflies, and copepods (small crustaceans).

Shuttle “Discovery” transferred to Smithsonian by NASA

John Barrat — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:47:31 +0000

NASA transferred the space shuttle Discovery to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum during a ceremony on Thursday, April 19, at the museum’s Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The keynote address was given by astronaut John Glenn, who is the oldest member of a Discovery crew. Shown here: The start of Discovery’s maiden voyage, Aug. 30, 1984, 8:42 a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center. It’s spaceflight career spanned more than 26 years. (NASA photo)

Air and Space Museum receives historic IMAX cameras from NASA

John Barrat — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:06:57 +0000

Two IMAX cameras were recently donated to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum by NASA. From 1984 to 1998, the two-dimensional IMAX cameras traveled to space with NASA astronauts on 17 different space shuttle missions. A series of six giant-screen films were produced as a result of footage obtained on the missions, including “The Dream is Alive,” “Blue Planet,” and “Mission to Mir.” This 1983 photo shows the IMAX camera, before its first mission, STS 41-C.

Video: Space Shuttle Discovery circles Washington, D.C. before landing at Dulles Airport

John Barrat — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:44:57 +0000

The shuttle Discovery, the longest-serving orbiter in history, landed at Dulles airport on Tuesday, April 17 at 11:05 a.m. EDT.

The shuttle made its final flight on the back of a modified 747 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Virginia’s Dulles International Airport today. At 9:48 a.m. EDT it flew over the airport at about 300 feet and then went around Washington, D.C., for about an hour and 15 minutes.

Discovery landed at 11:05 a.m. April 17, on runway 1R. The plane then taxied to a stop in an area called Apron W, which has been set up as a construction site to work on the 83-ton shuttle and de-mate it from the 747. The pilot, Jeff Moultrie, and co-pilot, Bill Rieke, will be greeted by officials from NASA and the Smithsonian and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. The shuttle will remain at the airport to be prepared for its final journey Thursday morning when it is towed to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center.

The official transfer of the shuttle from NASA to the Smithsonian will take place at the Udvar-Hazy Center at 11 a.m. Thursday with 15 of Discovery’s 32 commanders on the stage. The keynote address will be given by former Senator and astronaut John Glenn, who, at age 77, was the oldest member of a Discovery crew. The ceremony is free and open to the public.

Discovery will be the backdrop of the ceremony, and it will remain outdoors until 5:30 p.m. when it is scheduled to be towed into its new permanent home, the James S. McDonnell Space Hanger of the Udvar-Hazy Center.

Cinnabar specimen donated to Natural History

John Barrat — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:45:32 +0000

A mineral dealer from Dallas recently donated this fine specimen of Chinese cinnabar–the common ore of mercury–to the Department of Mineral Sciences of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. This twinned crystal is approximately 3 centimeters across. The specimen was donated to replace one that was damaged during the Aug. 23, 2011 earthquake. (Photo by Jeff Scovil)

Strange deep sea creatures confirmed as three new species

John Barrat — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:19:25 +0000

DNA analysis has established that creatures captured by scientists from the University of Aberdeen’s Oceanlab during a voyage to the mid-Atlantic are members of the Torquaratoridae; a recently discovered family of acorn worms.

Image right: North Atlantic deep sea acorn worm – Purple species (Images courtesy David Shale)

The identification of the delicate creatures–which could not be collected using the primitive deep sea grabs and dredges of previous centuries–may provide new insight not only into life in the deep sea but the evolution of life on earth.

The DNA analysis was conducted by Karen Osborn of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. A paper detailing the identification of the three new species was published Nov. 16 in Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B.

The Torquaratoridae, which were captured last year using a remotely operated vehicle launched from the RRS James Cook , have no eyes and no tail but manage to crawl along the sea floor harvesting food that has fallen from the surface.

Image left: North Atlantic deep sea acorn worm – pink species

“The DNA analysis has shown the relationships of the three Atlantic specimens to the growing family tree of the Torquaratoridae,” says Monty Priede, director of the University of Aberdeen’s Oceanlab and leader of the expedition that retrieved the samples from the Atlantic. “The way is now clear to correctly describe and name these new species, which at present are just know by their colours, pink, purple and white.”

Acorn worms are known as a scientific curiosity, inconspicuous burrowing animals that are related to the ancestors of back boned animals.

Image right: North Atlantic deep sea acorn worm – white species

“They are perceived as an evolutionary dead end, having been surpassed by their cousins, the fishes which acquired tails became fast swimmers, conquered the oceans and gave rise to reptiles, mammals and birds,” Priede says.

“However the Torquaratoridae family of acorn worms has not stood still; on the contrary they crawl over the sea floor, ploughing nutritious sediment into the mouth and leaving a characteristic spiral trail behind. They have also been observed to make swimming movements lifting off the sea floor to drift on the currents between patches of suitable feeding territory.”

Priede added that expeditions to the deep sea, using remotely operated vehicles, were likely to lead to ‘an evolutionary explosion’ of these animals with 15 species discovered so far and many more likely to be found in coming years.”–Source: Office of External Affairs, University of Aberdeen, King’s College

Siemens donates SOMATOM Emotion 6 CT scanner to National Museum of Natural History

John Barrat — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:31:00 +0000

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History has pioneered the use of CT scanning technology in noninvasive scientific research. Now, with the gift of a Siemens SOMATOM Emotion 6 CT scanner from Siemens Healthcare, Smithsonian researchers are acquiring information about museum objects that is fundamentally changing the way scientists examine specimens.

Image right: A color-enhanced image from a CT scan of a violin from the collection of the National Museum of American History that reveals the thickness of the wood of the violin’s front as well as past repairs.

“For more than a century scientists have pursued the mysteries of the natural world through the study of specimens in Smithsonian collections,” said Cristián Samper, director of the National Museum of Natural History. “The presence of the Siemens CT scanner in our anthropology department has revolutionized the way we look at everything from mummies and dinosaur fossils to the Smithsonian’s priceless collection of Stradivarius violins. This donation and its importance to Smithsonian research are significant.”

Image left: Bruno Frohlich, right, and Smithsonian anthropologist Dave Hunt prepare a mummy from Mongolia for entry into the the Natural History Museum’s CT scanner. (Photo by Don Hurlbert)

The National Museum of Natural History is one of the world’s preeminent research institutions in the field of the natural sciences. With more than 126 million specimens in its collections—the largest in the world—the museum is a repository for examples of the diversity of life on Earth and humanity’s common heritage. Under the leadership of anthropologist Bruno Frohlich, Smithsonian scientists and curators use the CT scanner on a daily basis to enrich understanding of the natural world and people’s place in it.

Research in the Smithsonian CT laboratory focuses on employing the CT scanner with the objective of understanding and studying objects, secure in the knowledge that they can be used and studied again in the future. “Most often scientific analytical research is associated with destructive methods,” said Bruno Frohlich. “Normally we have to destroy objects in order to study them. Nondestructive and noninvasive methods, such as CT scanning, not only enable us to study objects with greater attention to detail, but also ensure the preservation of the object and leaving it intact for future generations to study.”

This 53-second video consists of a series of images taken with a Siemens Somotom CT scanner of a mummy at the Department of Anthropology in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. The individual shown here is a male who died at about 40 years of age; a relatively mature age by ancient Egyptian standards. He is believed to have lived in Lower Egypt sometime between the 25-26th Greco-Roman periods, which is between 600 B.C. and about 150 A.D., or roughly 2,500 to 1,900 years ago.

While the CT scanner belongs to the National Museum of Natural History and has been used extensively to study the mummy collections, it is also available for use with other Smithsonian collections. “We use CT equipment to study valuable and precious objects such as the musical instruments in Smithsonian collections,” Frohlich said. “Happily, after a study is completed, musicians can still play the instrument. This is a remarkable breakthrough for science and museum conservation.”

Research findings made possible through the use of the new CT scanner were announced at an Oct. 27 presentation to Washington, D.C., public school elementary students at the National Museum of Natural History’s public hands-on Forensic Anthropology Lab. Four high school students from the museum’s youth internship program, “Youth Engagement Through Science,” visited Frohlich’s lab to observe the CT scanner on the mummy collection. The program included remarks by Samper, Hemani, Frohlich and Spiegel.

National Zoo’s red pandas named “Pili” and “Damini” for stormy night

John Barrat — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:37:43 +0000

Thunder, lightning and strong winds greeted the National Zoo’s two female red panda cubs when they were born June 17, and that stormy night has now determined their names. One cub, Pili, received her name today after voting closed on NBC Washington’s website. Pili, which means “clap of thunder” in Chinese, was the winner among four names—all storm-related—with 30 percent of the vote. A Zoo supporter named Pili’s twin sister Damini, which is Nepalese for “lightning.” Red pandas are native to the cool, temperate bamboo forests of Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar and Nepal. Only about 2,500 remain in the wild. Red panda enthusiasts can watch cubs and their parents, Shama and Tate, on the Zoo’s red panda webcam.

New dinosaur species named from hatchling fossil donated to National Museum of Natural History

John Barrat — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:12:25 +0000

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with help from amateur fossil hunter Ray Stanford, have described a previously unknown armored dinosaur hatchling from a fossil discovered in 1997 by Stanford near College Park, Md. The fossil represents the youngest nodosaur ever discovered, and the only known specimen of a new genus and species of dinosaur that lived approximately 110 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous Era. The new dinosaur, Propanoplosaurus marylandicus, was described in the Sept. 9, 2011 issue of the Journal of Paleontology.

The hatchling nodosaur fossil was donated to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History by Stanford, where it is on display to the public and also available for research.

After finding the fossil Stanford identified it as a nodosaur and called David Weishampel, a professor of anatomy at Johns Hopkins and a paleontologist and expert in dinosaur systematics. Weishampel and his colleagues established the fossil’s identity as a nodosaur by identifying a distinctive pattern of bumps and grooves on the skull. The body in the tiny fossil was only 13 cm long, just shorter than the length of a dollar bill. Adult nodosaurs are estimated to have been 20 to 30 feet long.

They then did a computer analysis of the skull shape, comparing its proportions to those of ten skulls from different species of ankylosaurs, the group that contains nodosaurs. They found that this dinosaur was closely related to some of the nodosaur species, although it had a shorter snout overall than the others. Comparative measurements enabled them to designate a new species, Propanoplosaurus marylandicus. In addition to being the youngest nodosaur ever found, it is the first hatchling of any dinosaur species ever recovered in the eastern United States. Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine

Smithsonian’s Dibner Library acquires astronomy volume published in 1570

John Barrat — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:28:09 +0000

The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, the oldest rare book collection of the Smithsonian Libraries, recently enriched its collection with an intriguing 16th century work in astronomy titled, Christop Clavius’s In sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco commentarius. Romae, 1570. Apud Victorium Helianum.

This first edition of Clavius’s commentaries on Joannes de Sacrobosco’s astronomical work Sphaera opens a fascinating window into the transitional time period of the early scientific revolution: the change from the earth-centered to the heliocentric world view, from Ptolemaism to Copernicanism.

Christoph Clavius (1538-1612), was perhaps the most distinguished mathematics professor of his generation at the Collegio Romano, the principal Jesuit seminary and college. He produced two extremely popular textbooks and he also served on the papal commission on calendar reform that would produce the Georgian calendar.

The basic text of this book, Joannes de Sacrobosco’s Sphaera (ca. 1230) was the most widely used astronomical resource of the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period and went through literally hundreds of editions inspiring many commentaries.

Clavius’s edition of the Sphaera was an extremely important book, and according to modern historians is the “greatest of all Sphere commentaries.” The copy the Dibner Library has purchased bears extensive marginal annotations and intertextual mathematical calculations of several early readers, and would doubtless reward further study.

The book is richly illustrated. A woodcut of armillary sphere decorates the title-page, three half-page and many smaller woodcut illustrations and diagrams are in the text. There are also woodcut initials of various sizes and styles. —Adapted from a Smithsonian Libraries blog posting by Hosea Baskin and Lilla Vekerdy