Reviews

Of Man and Museums #3: The Natural History Museum (part 2)

The next exhibit I want to mention in these musings on the NHM London is the Mammals Gallery (blue whale hall). The life-sized model of a blue-whale is well known and definitely dominates the room, perhaps a little too much. The first impression I got when entering the hall was how crowded it was. This was partially due to many people in the popular gallery and having to narrowly avoid being flattened by push-chairs. However this was not the only cause of the feeling of claustrophobia I got.

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Of Man and Museums #2: Natural History Museum London (part 1)

As I mentioned in the post about the Neanderthal museum a few days ago, I also visited the Natural History Museum in London. My impressions were varied. The museum was overcrowded, noisy and full of screaming, running schoolchildren, pushing everyone around with their backpacks. Not a good start. (A warning now: I will say few good things in this post but those that I do mention, I mean. Don’t be fooled in thinking the museum is not worth a visit because it most definitely is.)

The shot below was taken in the entrance hall. The gallery in the picture is on evolution. I’m sure it’s a nice gallery but it was being redone. There was a big black box in the middle of it. The nicest part of it where the skeletons of monkeys hanging above. I could find no plate identifying them but that could have been lost in the crowds and refurbishing.

And you know, it’s perfectly acceptable that a gallery gets refurbished. So I wandered on, fighting my way through the masses to the Dinosaur exhibition. And what was there to greet me? Apart from a too dark gallery, some technical gimmicks and too many people? Some more refurbishments. This caused the back exit of the gallery to be closed so that you had to fight your way back through the crowds to make your way out of the middle exit. Not great if there’s crowds around already. Should I bother mentioning the fact that the focus was not on fossils? Fossils where either not lit well enough (for example the replication of a fossil bed in which I could make out just about nothing) or they where mounted too high. Few where available for nice viewing.

Note that on the top gallery there’s also the “tree-gallery”. This is basically a ceiling art-work. It’s a slice through a tree. Stuck to the ceiling. The only other thing in the ceiling is Ida. ‘Nuff said. It’s a nice, light empty room with benches. I had a rest here. There’s also a video of the relevant tree-felling in the gallery next door but the general background noise was too distracting and there were no benches in front of the tv.

Also up here are statues of Huxley (‘Darwin’s bulldog’) and Richard Owens (the “inventor” of dinosaurs), similar to the statue of Darwin in the entrance hall that everyone knows but more hidden. Most people walk past them without seeing them.

Okay, on I go to the marine reptile gallery. That’s bound to be a good one. And it is. It’s basically a long wall full of marine reptile fossils. Mainly ichthyosaurs (my favourite!!), some mosasaurs and some pleisiosaurs. There’s the pregnant ichthyosaur fossils that I’ve read about, there’s the skeletal eye ring. Most people just stomp past it. There’s no colours, no big panels explaining things. Sure, the gallery could use some revamping, some explanations wouldn’t be amiss and some fossils are so high up you can’t really see them, especially with the reflections from the light. But the fossils speak for themselves to me. This has to be my favourite part of the museum.

On I went, through the birds gallery. This contains a nice historical case showing what galleries in museums used to look like. I would have liked to study it in more detail but was once again cowed by people wanting to take their picture with the case.

Also here is the entrance to the special exhibition “The Deep”. I had already seen this exhibition in Frankfurt last year and it is excellent. I didn’t go to see it again for time and cost reasons but it’s definitely worth it.

And yes, I’m aware I harbour an intense hatred for crowds. Sorry.

Next time: squid, whales and the internet.

Listening to: If a song could get me you – Marit Larsen

Further posts about museums:

• Sauriermuseum Aathal
• Neanderthal Museum

The only game in town, the greatest show on Earth

Well, a year ago when this book was new and exciting, I couldn’t resist buying it. I read a chapter or so. And then Uni started in earnest. Finally, this summer, I got around to actually reading it.

Let me say this is definitely a book intended for the masses. As the cover states, it’s a book about the evidence for evolution. It’s also a book aimed at refuting the “history-deniers”, as Dawkins calls creationists in this book. Both the introduction and the last chapter are full of stats about how many % of X citizens believe in Y or Z or perhaps even V. I wonder how many creationists actually pick this book up? Would the rhetoric implying how stupid someone must be not to believe in evolution not offend? Would Dawkins reputation as atheist not prevent a creationist from reading the book with an open mind?

Well, I realise that creationists are a real “problem” I don’t much enjoy talking about them all the time. Thankfully, Dawkins doesn’t keep harping on about stats but gets down to the nitty-gritty of evolution. I loved the details and examples he uses. He doesn’t just talk about whale evolution that everyone with the slightest background in evolution knows about dugongs and sea turtles and all kinds of exciting things. I fell the need to go over it again and take notes.

All this time though, Dawkins maintains a very informal tone, also like he’s just having a chat. Clearly, this makes of easier, more pleasurable reading. This style carries through into clear, simple but detailed (enough) explanations of molecular mechanisms that are necessary to also use molecular examples. As a biologist, I clearly didn’t need, say enzymes, explained to me but the passages didn’t come across as tedious or patronising.

The book doesn’t go into evolutionary theory much. It touches on some aspects in the chapter on arms races but it is not a book about evolutionary theory. Having found this book thoroughly enjoyable, the plan is to read Dawkins first book “The Selfish Gene” next. I had started reading it quite a few years ago but found the going difficult. My English wasn’t what it is now, my knowledge of evolution wasn’t either. I am hoping that I will find the book easier to read and more enjoyable on this second attempt.

Reading list:

• What Evolution Is / Ernst Mayr (currently reading)
• The Selfish Gene / Richard Dawkins
• Das Werden des Lebens – Wie Gene die Entwicklung steuern. / Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard
• The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can. / James Lovelock

Currently listening to watching: Der Untergang

Of Man and Museums #1: The Neanderthal Museum

I am back in the land of relativly speedy internet access, if only for a day. While I’m here, enjoying the sunshine in Germany, I figured it was time for a more substantial blog post on yesterday’s daytrip. A more detailed blog post on Scottish going-ons will follow when I’m home for good.

The entire Ruhrgebiet was excited for the Kultur-Event Still-Leben. On Sunday, 60km of the most important motorway in the region, stretching past 6 major cities was closed off. On it, 20 000 tables where lined up in a long row. The other side of the motorway was open to cyclists and the like. Yesterday night, it was estimated that around 3 million people turned up. Needless to say, fast cycling wasn’t on and on the pictures I saw, most people were pushing their bike.

Crazy stuff.

Instead of participating, getting a headache and sunburn from the sun and the crowds, and generally following the hype, we went to the Neanderthal Museum. Compared to my also recent experience at the Natural History Museum London, which I will blog about in due time, this was a very pleasent visit [not that there is nothing positive to say about the NHM, London].

The museum is organised around a ramp going upwards and mainly focusses on human evolution in general. Only in the beginning is there a short exhibit detailing the actual Neanderthal find. The content that is present though is well presented and as far as I can tell, accurate and up-to date. While the audio guide obviously does mention the recent news on the Neanderthal genome (review by Carl Zimmer), it does not conform to the view that dominated during my childhood – that Neanderthals and modern humans definately did not mix. It remains suitably vague on the subject saying that either is possible. At the end of the museum there is a “recent discoveries” board where the press release from the Max-Plank institute was posted. This is a feature that should be elementary to all museums but is sadly lacking in many.

We also walked the 400m from the museum to the site of discovery. The original “Gestein” (=stone) and cave in which the skeleton was found are long gone – the find was made during mining. Now there is a piece of lawn with various pieces of what I can only identify as modern art on it. However you can take the audio guide with you.

All in all, the museum is definatly worth a visit if you’re ever in the area.

Neanderthal-Link-Fest:

Neanderthal Museum in Mettman, also contains basic information on the find and the site of discovery

Wikipedia – Neandertal. Information on the valley and site of discovery. Much more information on the German page, if you can speak/read German.

Wikipedia – Neanderthal. Information on Homo (sapiens) neanderthalis. Plenty of links to sources at the bottom.

Wikipedia – Johann Carl Fuhlrott and Hermann Schaaffhausen. The “founders of paeloanthropology” by making sense of the find before the theory of evolution was even published. Again, more details on the German pages (Fuhlrott, Schaaffhausen).

Sauriermuseum, Aathal

A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to visit the Sauriermuseum in Aathal, Switzerland. We were there with friends and it was a rainy Saturday meaning it was busy too, so I didn’t get a chance to explore in as much detail as I would have wished. However it was still a great experience. The museum is small but houses many interesting, large fossils, and not only those of T.rex and Stegosaur that we’ve all seen a million times before. I took a great many pictures and am curious about many of the animals I’ve seen so I guarantee more posts inspired by it, be they research or just picture based.

And if you’re ever in the area, it’s worth a visit.