thebrainscoop:

We spent a few months amassing a small collection of museum specimens from the different areas and offices around the building, for display on the set of our new program, Natural News from The Field Museum which launches September 14th! In a few weeks we’ll share a video talking about more of these objects in detail, but in the meantime: 

I spy Triceratops, blue as can be-
A -morpho in glass, Apatosaurus in green
Some corals, a seahorse – tiny ear bones between
And a raccoon painting, just barely seen. 

I spy two ancient horses, a globe near some books-
A fossilized pine cone, a hominid skull in a nook.
I spy the trilobites: seven in all
One is gigantic, six others are small. 

I spy a human heart, modeled in plastic
A Gorgosaurus posed to eat (it’s my favorite; fantastic)
A typewriter with margins set to print labels
And a handful of pamphlets for display on the table. 

I spy adventure, excitement and knowledge
A collection of wonder and more things to acknowledge.
I wrote this for you in the hopes you’ll stay tuned
For our new program which I’m so thrilled is launching SOON!

:D 

#Winning

dendroica:

Phoebe Snetsinger: woman who listed more than 8,000 bird species celebrated in today’s Google Doodle | The Independent

Phoebe Snetsinger, the inspiration for a new Google Doodle, was the woman who made her life’s work of documenting more than 8,300 bird species - the first person to do so. The 9th June 2016 would have been her 85th birthday.

Yet it was only just before her 50th birthday, when she was diagnosed with cancer, that the bored and frustrated housewife turned her pastime of bird-watching into an all-consuming obsession.

The Google Doodle comes at a time when there is growing interest from girls and women in birding. A new Facebook group called World Girl Birders has more than 1,900 members.

But in 1981, the bird-watching community was male-dominated. But that didn’t stop Ms Snetsinger, the author of her memoir: “Birding on Borrowed Time”, when she was told she had a “fatal” melanoma and she had less than a year to live, of setting out to see the world.

Her first tour after the diagnosis was in Alaska. She then traveled across all seven continents, aided by her late father’s inheritance, to document the world’s birds. During a three-week trip in Kenya, she saw 500 different bird species. There are now around 10,000 bird species, according to the American Birding Association.

Tony Bennett, who led Ms Snetsinger on her first ever birding tour of Northern Mexico, told The Independent that she was a “consummate craftsman of bird-watching” and that she was never to be seen without her binoculars or telescope. “Bang, she had a scope on that bird before anyone had a scope to their face,” he said. “She was intense, and knowledgable. She was the most interesting person I have ever met.“

Well, that’s my favourite thing of the day done and sorted

(via entoderek)