Basket making by Botswana women has a long history and it continues to be a robust craft tradition.  During the last three decades it has become increasingly well known in the international craft market.

Etsha Weavers Group, a Botswana craft group made up of 24 skilled basketmakers, has played a pivotal role in bringing attention to Botswana basketry as a unique art form.

“This contemporary Botswana basket is an important addition to the Smithsonian’s collection,” says Mary Jo Arnoldi, curator, African ethnology, at the Natural History Museum. “This piece provides an updated visual timeline in the collection showcasing both the continuity and the evolution of basket making in Botswana.” As an integral part of the Botswana culture, baskets have been used for a variety of purposes. Closed baskets with lids, like the recently acquired piece, are used for storing grain and seed. Large, open bowl shaped baskets are used by the women for the transportation of goods and smaller, plate shaped baskets are used for winnowing grain after it has been processed.

Photo right: Mashe Mbombo of the Estha Weavers Group

Basket makers in Botswana use a method called coiling to create their modern baskets. The process of making a coil basket can take up to six weeks to complete. Basket makers use a thick bundle of palm fiber, grass or vine to begin the inner coil. The next step is to pierce a small hole into the coil and begin wrapping strips of palm around the core of the basket. This process is repeated until the basket reaches the desired size – designs are created by weaving strips of dyed palm into the basket pattern. Arnoldi notes that, “The National Museum of Natural History Anthropology collection had only five smaller plate shaped basketry trays from Botswana, all collected in rural villages prior to the 1960s. We certainly welcome the addition of this large and beautifully made storage basket to the collections.” –Jessica Porter

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The Lutron materials will join other artifacts in the museum’s Electricity Collection, including experimental light bulbs from Thomas Edison, dimming light sockets from the 1910s, theatrical lighting controls from the 1920s and many types of light switches.

“The Lutron objects help to fill a hole in the museum’s collection of lighting controls,” says Hal Wallace, associate curator of the Electricity Collections. “These objects span the period from 1964 to 2009 and bring our collection up to date.”

Several of the more recent pieces show how computer technology has been incorporated into lighting controls. For example, two of the objects are remotely controlled dimming units – one is a wireless device, the other operates with an infrared control. From a cultural standpoint, these devices raise interesting questions about our changing ability to control our interior environments, and the means by which we do so.

Image right: The Lutron Skylark eco-dim light switch.

“American homes changed significantly during the 20th century as people adopted electricity for any number of tasks, including illumination,” says Wallace. “Objects such as those being donated by Lutron fit in nicely with the switches and control devices we preserve that date back to Edison’s day. Studying the tools of everyday life, such as light switches, helps us to understand our ever-changing technological society.”
--Jessica Porter

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Image left: Caddo potter Jeri Redcorn

“One of the greatest strengths of the anthropology collections at NMNH is their historical depth,” says Daniel Rogers, anthropology department chairman at the Natural History Museum. “Ms. Redcorn’s contemporary pottery is providing NMNH anthropologists with a modern connection to early Caddo traditions.”

The Caddo people of Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma have maintained many of their traditional ways and actively work to preserve their unique tribal cultural today. One example is the pottery of Jeri Redcorn.

“Ms. Redcorn’s pottery represents the modern reflection of a tradition that goes back more than 1,200 years,” says Rogers.

Redcorn, a native of Oklahoma, began her study of the legendary Caddo pottery after many years of admiring the work of her native people. In 1991, she vowed to learn how to carry on the tradition and officially began her study of the Caddo pottery.

Early Caddo pottery was made of coiled clay commonly mixed with a temper (a material that strengthens the clay) made of bone or pottery shards. The shape of the vessels varied considerably in form and decoration, but as seen in Redcorn’s work, pottery was commonly decorated with incised (drawn into wet clay) lines forming complex circular and rectangular designs that covered a large portion of the vessel.

Image right: These three vessels by Jeri Redcorn were recently added to the collections of the Anthropology Department of the National Museum of Natural History. (Photo by James DiLoreto)

In 2007 Ms. Redcorn was commissioned to make three pots for the National Museum of Natural History.  The end result was three beautiful examples that represent a combination of traditional designs with a modern interpretation.  The three pots were brought to the Smithsonian in 2009. Ms. Redcorn has also participated in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian programs and in 2009 First Lady Michelle Obama chose one of Ms. Redcorn’s pots for display in the White House.

“Ms. Redcorn is a modern-day cultural interpreter of a very long tradition,” says Rogers, “We’re happy to have Ms. Redcorn’s pottery join the Smithsonian collection.”--Jessica Porter

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The Stephen L. Wood collection brings the collection of bark beetles held in the Natural History Museum’s Department of Entomology to an impressive 180,000 specimens, making it one of the most extensive collections in world.

Image right: Bark beetle galleries or tunnels excavated in wood beneath the bark of an American elm. (Photo by Deborah Bell)

“The Smithsonian’s collection is arguably the most important bark beetle collection in the world,” says David Furth, entomology collections manager at the Natural History Museum. “We are proud to have the S. L. Wood beetles join our collection.”

Bark beetles, named for the fact that they live and reproduce in the inner bark of trees, are common pests of conifers, such as pine. Different species of bark beetles attack different species of trees, causing damage and spreading disease. Most bark beetle species are dark red, brown, or black, and about the size of a grain of rice. When viewed under magnification, their antennae are visibly elbowed with the outer segments enlarged and club-like. The antennae contain receptors that may detect tree resin odors, thus functioning as the beetle’s nose and enabling their ravenous appetites.

Image left: Entomologists Natalia Vandenburg and Dave Furth at the National Museum of Natural History with dozens of wooden drawers containing bark beetle specimens donated by Stephen L. Wood.

With more than 2,000 known species—some 200 are found in California alone—bark beetles are both ecologically and economically significant. Outbreak species of these tree-damaging beetles kill large areas of forests in western USA and may spread tree diseases like Dutch elm disease.

Dave Furth and other Entomology Department staff set out on a cross-country expedition, rental truck in tow, to bring Wood’s bark-beetle collection home to the Smithsonian. Consisting of some 181-specimen drawers, the collection was carefully transported from Provo, Utah to the Smithsonian in 2009.

Since that time, the Smithsonian’s entomology staff have brought the Wood’s bark beetles into the museum’s collection area and transferred and archived his massive library and correspondence records into the museum’s research library.

“We are pleased the S. L. Wood acquisition has joined the Smithsonian’s collection, and will contribute to the future study of the bark beetle,” Furth says. –Jessica Porter

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Image right: Anthropologists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History clean and measure the body of William White after his coffin was opened. (Photo by Chip Clark)

White, who was a student at Columbian College from Accomack County, Va., died of pneumonia and complications from a mitral heart defect. When his coffin was unearthed, his identity was a deep mystery. Only through the diligent work of a multi-disciplinary team of Smithsonian staff, student interns and external specialists was White’s identity finally established. After a number of blind leads the team was able to track down White’s living relatives through historical records. They then used DNA analysis to confirm that the designated relatives were indeed related to White.

White’s relatives erected a headstone for him at a family cemetery on Virginia’s Eastern Shore and donated his remains, clothing and coffin to the Natural History Museum’s Department of Anthropology.

“The results of the multidisciplinary and collaborative research that led to the identification of William T. White is a testament in the interaction of the Smithsonian departments and the abilities of the experts involved,” says David Hunt, collections manager of the Physical Anthropology Division at the Natural History Museum.

Future studies of White’s coffin, clothing and well-preserved remains will further support DNA research by museum staff, as well as research on cast iron coffins and Civil War-era clothing.

“The addition of this accession to the Natural History Museum’s Anthropology Department fills a void for pre-Civil War iron coffin types and the remains of a documented known age and sex sub-adult skeleton,” Hunt says. “This acquisition is a ground-breaking addition to the Smithsonian collection and will further promote Smithsonian research.” —Jessica Porter & John Barrat

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It’s not an exaggeration to say Hedrick was ecstatic when she peered into her inverted phase contrast microscope and found Amphisolenia quadrispina floating in her sample. “For 20 years I’ve been hoping to see something like this,” she says. A. quadrispina has a unique long, thin shape that resembles a stick, more than it does other dinoflagellates. It’s huge too — between 600 to 700 microns, which is still smaller than the tip of a needle, but large by phytoplankton standards.

Photo right: The dinoflagellate Amphisolenia quadrispina from the Bay of Bengal (Credit: Sharyn Hedrick and Charles Gallegos).

The dinoflagellate came to Hedrick in a shipment of samples collected in off India’s South Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. Hedrick has photographed and identified samples from around the world: Asia, the Middle East, Antarctica and North America. She is adding a photo of A. quadrispina to her online Phytoplankton Guide, a source for students and fellow-researchers working with phytoplankton.

“This is a most unusual species of dinoflagellate,” Hedrik says. “Its body is very elongated. The base of the cell has four spinules. They look like little feet or stalks. The neck expands to two collars with the end of the cell protruding through the collars. This is a tropical and subtropical species in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.”

–Tina Tennessen for sercblog.si.edu

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A local television news crew brought the meteorite to the Smithsonian for verification and Natural History Museum Collections Manager Linda Welzenbach identified it as a stony chrondite meteorite weighing about two-thirds of a pound. “It’s ordinary because 85 to 90 percent of everything that falls is this type of meteorite,” Welzenbach told the Baltimore Sun newspaper. “It has a light gray interior with little, tiny iron, nickel metal particles.” The meteorite is covered with a black fusion crust that was created as its exterior melted from the heat generated by friction with the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Called an omnimetre, it is the 1891 invention of Philadelphia engineer Albert Sexton who created its prototype using a piece of tracing paper and a suspender button. As its name suggests, the omnimetre was designed to carry out numerous operations of arithmetic and trigonometry, says Peggy Kidwell, curator of mathematics at the Smithsonian. “It has scales for multiplication, division and common logarithms, as well as squares, cubes, and fifth powers of numbers.” In his own words, Sexton called his circular invention a “quite useful and inexpensive slide rule.”

The omnimetre sold successfully in America for some 60 years yet was never widely popular. Still, this device and other 19th century “aids to arithmetic,” Kidwell says, helped “shape and reshape engineering and the activity of mathematicians” at a critical time in American history.  

In the late 1800s, the growth of American professional engineering, new manufacturing techniques, European precedents, and the innovations of people like Sexton combined to encourage much wider use of aids to computation. Arithmetic, once considered as a purely intellectual activity, increasingly became a mechanical task. Mathematical analysis also played a larger role in business, engineering and the social sciences. Ownership of computing devices, especially slide rules, came to be seen as a symbol of technical competence.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is home to a collection of several thousand mathematical instruments that includes not only a few hundred slide rules but numerous calculating machines, drawing instruments, geometric models and teaching devices. Sexton’s slide rule is an invention that tells an important story about the rise of mathematics and engineering  in America.

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Photos : Chameleon forest dragons (By Mehgan Murphy)

A chameleon forest dragon’s scaly skin is a brilliant lime green when it hatches. As it matures, its color will either stay green or change to a brown-tan tone with dark brown markings. These colors mimic tree leaves and bark—an essential camouflage that helps this arboreal reptile hide from predators. Equipped with lean limbs and five curved, clawed digits on each of their feet, forest dragons easily maneuver through the trees of their native Indonesia and west Malaysia.

But their name is deceptive: chameleon forest dragons are neither chameleons nor dragons; rather, this species is a type of lizard called an agamid (pronounced “AG-uh-mid”). Some scientists speculate that, like a true chameleon, the forest dragon’s subtle color shifts help it blend into its surroundings, send social signals, and even reflect mood changes. Its short, triangular head resembles that of a mythical dragon, and spiky, leaf-shaped ridge plates adorn the crown of its head and extend the length of its back. Fully grown, this lizard can reach up to 12 inches in length, from nose to tip of the tail.

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Image: The Hubble Space Telescope

Soon after its launch in April 1990, scientist knew something was wrong when they began receiving blurry images from Hubble. After investigation, scientists realized that the main mirror had a “spherical aberration”—a slight but serious distortion on the 8-foot diameter primary mirror that caused the light that reflects off the center of the mirror to focus in a different place than the light reflected near the edge.

In December 1993, shuttle crews installed COSTAR, a box-shaped device with tiny nickel-sized mirrors that intercepted light reflecting off the mirror, cancelling the large main mirror’s flaw.  At that time, astronauts also replaced the Wide Field/Planetary Camera with a new version, the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). WFPC2 was the first of Hubble’s instruments to have built-in corrective optics.

WFPC2 became the Hubble’s primary instrument, responsible for most of the brilliant new celestial images.  A complementary exhibit in Space Hall presents the best of these images.

Image: The HST Wide Field Planetary Camera (Photo by Eric Long). 

“COSTAR and WFPC2 represent ingenious applications of optical and mechanical expertise to solve a critical problem,” says David DeVorkin, senior curator of history of astronomy and the space sciences at NASM.  “They represent a crisis point in the history of the Hubble telescope itself, one that might have seriously jeopardized the nation’s space program if we were unable to meet the crisis.” After years of service, both of these instruments were replaced during Hubble service missions and brought back to earth.

The Hubble Space Telescope is one of NASA’s most successful and long lasting space missions. With the help of COSTAR and WFPC2, the Hubble has beamed hundreds of thousands of images back to Earth. “COSTAR and WFPC2 are valuable additions to the Smithsonian collection of space science and artifacts,” DeVorkin says.

Image: The Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement—COSTAR. (Photo by Eric Long)

Only the future will tell what discoveries await as Hubble’s spectacular vision continues to enlighten scientists.
—Jessica Porter

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