The Smithsonian Libraries will open its new exhibition “Whales: From Bone to Book” in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History on May 25. This exhibition is a collaboration between the Libraries and the museum’s Department of Paleobiology. “Whales: From Bone to Book” will be on display through April 2014.

Accompanying this exhibition will be a free symposium: “Whale Research at the Smithsonian: Past, Present and Future,” at the National Museum of Natural History on Thursday, June 6. The event is free and open to the public. For a symposium schedule, click here.

Click Smithsonian Libaries blog to learn more about the exhibition. 

When it comes to brain size, Homo sapiens generally get the most credit. But to find the baby mammals with the proportionally largest brains on the planet, Smithsonian scientists had to search in Antarctica. In a study published online in April, they found Weddell seal pups have the most developed brains at birth recorded for any mammal so far.

By the time they are born, baby Weddell seal brains have already reached 70 percent of their adult size. (The brain of a human infant is a mere 25 percent of its adult size.) But the researchers found this rapid development carries a hefty price tag. Click here to read more at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s Shorelines blog.

Magnetic field measurement techniques have long enabled scientists to probe the internal structure of biological and material samples. For example, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides information about the structure and function of tissue inside opaque biological specimens. A current limitation of such biologically-compatible magnetic imaging techniques is that their resolution is insufficient to resolve the internal structure of cells, which are instead typically studied using optical or electron microscopes.

In the current issue of the journal Nature, scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics David Le Sage, David Glenn, and Ron Walsworth, together with their collaborators, present a method for resolving the magnetic structure of living biological specimens at a sub-cellular level. In their study, they use a particular variety of bacteria that naturally produces an internal chain of magnetic nanoparticles. They place these live bacteria onto a diamond surface that has been modified to contain crystal defects that interact with magnetic fields and with light.

A typical electron microscope image of a bacterium; magnetic nanoparticles inside the bacterium appear as black spots. A new technique has been developed that is capable of studying living cells at comparable spatial resolutions by taking advantage of the presence of these magnetic particles.
Credit: Nature

By shining a laser beam onto the surface and measuring the pattern of the light emitted by the defects using an optical microscope, they are able to record images of the magnetic field pattern present at the diamond surface with a spatial resolution that is on the order of the wavelength of light. The technique is a spinoff from the group’s laser technology research on behalf of astronomical research, including exoplanet detection and radio interferometry.

These first results demonstrate the promise of the technique to probe magnetically the internal structure of living cells. This technique could be used to shed new light on the properties and life cycles of these magnetic bacteria, and it points the way toward more sophisticated probes of a wide range of other biologically interesting systems.

Todd Mason/Courtesy of Giant Magellan Telescope Organization

This simulated image shows the Giant Magellan Telescope in operation in Chile while deploying lasers for its adaptive-optics system. The GMT is scheduled to begin partial operation in 2019. To learn more about this remarkable telescope and the big science of building it, read a new feature in Harvard Magazine about it by clicking here.

This image shows farmer Roy Bardole seated at the controls of his combine in a cornfield on a farm in Iowa. A GPS guidance system display is mounted at the top center on right side of the tractor cab. Satellite navigation helps farmers meet the challenge of increasing crop yields and lowering costs. They can use precise positioning to plant and harvest faster and more efficiently than ever before. And by applying fertilizers and pesticides more precisely, they can reduce the environmental impact of raising crops. Click the exhibition title below to see more from the new National Air and Space Museum show “Time and Navigation: The Untold Story of Getting from Here to There.”

Flowers of the Goodyera pubescens orchid (downy rattlesnake plantain). (Photo by Melissa McCormick/SERC)

Invasive European earthworms could prevent roughly half a North American forest’s orchid seeds from even germinating, ecologists from Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and Johns Hopkins University discovered in a new study published online in Annals of Botany Plants.

The small size of orchid seeds (they are barely the size of dust grains) makes them particularly vulnerable. As earthworms chew up forest litter, they ingest orchid seeds as well. When that happens, two things can keep the seeds from germinating: One, the process of passing through an earthworm’s gut can render them unviable. Or two, if the seeds survive ingestion, they can end up buried so deep that they can’t access the fungi they need to germinate and grow. As a general rule, deeper soils are much less likely to have those fungi.

Learn more at Shorelines, the blog of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.

The limosa harlequin frog (Atelopus limosus), an endangered species native to Panama, now has a new lease on life. The Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project is successfully breeding the chevron-patterned form of the species in captivity for the first time. The rescue project is raising nine healthy frogs from one mating pair and hundreds of tadpoles from another pair.

“These frogs represent the last hope for their species,” said Brian Gratwicke, international coordinator for the project and a research biologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, one of six project partners. “This new generation is hugely inspiring to us as we work to conserve and care for this species and others.”

A limosa harlequin frog (Atelopus limosus) on a U.S. quarter. (Photo by Brian Gratwicke)

Nearly one-third of the world’s amphibian species are at risk of extinction. The rescue project aims to save priority species of frogs in Panama, one of the world’s last strongholds for amphibian biodiversity. While the global amphibian crisis is the result of habitat loss, climate change and pollution, a fungal disease, chytridiomycosis, is likely responsible for as many as 94 of 120 frog species disappearing since 1980.

Between its facilities at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Gamboa, Panama, and the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center in El Valle, Panama, the rescue project currently cares for 55 adult limosa harlequin frogs of the chevron-patterned form and 10 of the plain-color form. The project has had limited success breeding the plain-color form of this species, and has successfully bred other challenging endangered species, including crowned treefrogs (Anotheca spinosa), horned marsupial frogs (Gastrotheca cornuta) and toad mountain harlequin frogs (A. certus).

Each species requires its own unique husbandry to thrive and breed. The project’s animal care team and scientists learn husbandry techniques as they work with a limited number of individuals. Jorge Guerrel, conservation biologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, arranged rocks in the breeding tank to create the submerged caves that appear to be the preferred egg-deposition sites for limosa harlequin frogs. Like other Atelopus species, tadpoles require highly oxygenated, gently flowing water between 22 and 24 degrees Celsius. The tadpoles’ natural food is algal film growing on submerged rocks, which Guerrel and his colleagues re-created by painting petri dishes with a solution of powdered spirulina algae, then allowing it to dry.

The mission of the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project is to rescue amphibian species that are in extreme danger of extinction throughout Panama. The project’s efforts and expertise are focused on establishing assurance colonies and developing methodologies to reduce the impact of the amphibian chytrid fungus so that one day captive amphibians may be reintroduced to the wild. Current project partners include Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Houston Zoo, Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Zoo New England.

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Photo by Brian Gratwicke, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

New maps of the subsurface of Mars show for the first time buried channels below the surface of the red planet. Mars is considered to have been cold and dry over the past 2.5 billion years, but these channels suggest evidence of flooding.

The location of the ~ 1000 km Marte Vallis channel system on Mars. Marte Vallis is filled with young lavas obscuring the source and morphology of the channels. The dashed box highlights the area shown in Fig. 2. The background shows the global topography of Mars (MOLA colorized elevation above a MOLA hillshade image).

Understanding the source and scale of the young channels present in Elysium Planitia—an expanse of plains along the equator, and the youngest volcanic region on the planet—is essential to comprehend recent Martian hydrologic activity and determine if such floods could have induced climate change. The findings are reported by a team from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Planetary Science Directorate in the Southwest Research Institute and the Smithsonian Institution, led by Smithsonian scientist Gareth A. Morgan, in a paper, “3D Reconstruction of the Source and Scale of Buried Young Flood Channels on Mars” published in the March 7 issue of the journal Science.

As a consequence of extensive volcanism throughout the past several hundred million years, young lava covers most of the surface of Elysium Planitia, burying evidence of its recent geologic history, including the source and most of the length of the 1,000 kilometer-long Marte Vallis channel system. Marte Vallis has a similar morphology to more ancient channel systems on Mars that likely formed by the catastrophic release of ground water; however, little is known about Marte Vallis due to its burial by lava. The team used data from the Shallow Radar on board the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft to probe the subsurface of Elysium Planitia. They were able to map the buried channels and establish that the floods originated from a now buried portion of the Cerberus Fossae fracture system.

“Our findings show that the scale of erosion was previously underestimated and that channel depth was at least twice that of previous approximations,” said Morgan, geologist at the National Air and Space Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies and lead author on the paper. “The source of the floodwaters suggests they originated from a deep groundwater reservoir and may have been released by local tectonic or volcanic activity. This work demonstrates the importance of orbital sounding radar in understanding how water has shaped the surface of Mars.”

The National Museum of Natural History’s gem collection has a new addition: the Cindy Chao Black Label Masterpiece Royal Butterfly Brooch. Created by Chao in 2009 and donated to the museum by the artist, the brooch is the first Taiwanese-designed piece in the collection.

The Cindy Chao Black Label Masterpiece Royal Butterfly Brooch

The Royal Butterfly, composed of 2,328 gems, totals 77 carats. It is set with fancy-colored and color-changing sapphires and diamonds, rubies and tsavorite garnets. The centerpieces of the butterfly’s wings are four large-faceted diamond slices stacked atop a pave layer of faceted diamonds, creating a pattern resembling the microstructure and scale of a living butterfly’s wings. Click here to learn more.

Animal keeper Karen Abbott holds one of the National Zoological Park’s twin 8-week-old Andean bear cubs during its first veterinary exam. The cubs received a clean bill of health Feb. 20 from Zoo veterinarians during a complete physical exam on Feb. 20. The cubs, which appear to be male and female and were born Dec. 14, also received the first of a series of routine vaccines.

New data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest a highly distorted supernova remnant known as W49B (shown here) may contain the most recent black hole formed in the Milky Way galaxy. The remnant appears to be the product of a rare explosion in which matter is ejected at high speeds along the poles of a rotating star. Visit the Chandra X-ray Observatory Web site to read more.

Domestic cats in the United States kill some 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals each year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles according to the New York Times in a recent article about a new report in the journal Nature co-authored by Peter Marra, an ornithologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. To learn more click here.

This image of a wild giant panda was taken by a trail camera in a remote forest in central China. As few as 1,600 giant pandas remain in China’s mountains. They live in broadleaf and coniferous forests with a dense understory of bamboo, at elevations between 5,000 and 10,000 feet. This and thousands of other images of wild animals taken by trail cameras stationed in remote areas around the world can be found on the Web site Smithsonian Wild.

This artist’s illustration represents the variety of planets being detected by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. A new analysis has determined the frequencies of planets of all sizes, from Earths up to gas giants. One in six stars hosts an Earth-sized planet in an orbit of 85 days or less, and that almost all sun-like stars have a planetary system of some sort. Click Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Web site to read more.

Scops mc callii, or the Western Mottled Owl, a color plate from The Birds of North America, the descriptions of species based chiefly on the collections of the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, 1860 by Spencer Fullerton Baird, second secretary of the Smithsonian. From the collections of Smithsonian Libraries.