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Archive for May, 2016

Underwhelming Fossil Fish of the Month: May 2016

By Mark Carnall, on 31 May 2016

WARNING, WARNING! We got a looker this month boys and girls. Underwhelming fossil fish come in all shapes and sizes, some are virtually nothing, others inspire great works of art but once in a while we get one that is surprisingly and distinctly fish shaped. It’s still not very interesting to anyone but the most love blind of the fossil fish fanatics and for that we shall dutifully analyse, precisely and scientifically, via the well established ‘Top Trump categories’ method the ways in which it is uninteresting.

For those of you unsure as to how you got to this part of the Internet and still not quite sure what’s going on, you’ve arrived at the latest entry of Underwhelming Fossil Fish of the Month. Fossil collections are full of specimens of animals you won’t have heard of, can’t really imagine and even if you could imagine them, they weren’t really worth the effort in the first place. We could sex them up a bit by making up animals like those naughty fossil reptile palaeontologists but this is not the fish way. Instead we’ll celebrate them the only way we can, with an analysis of their rather dry and esoteric history.

If you are of a delicate fortitude or can’t handle too much fossil fish at once, I’m going to ease you into this month’s let down specimen… (more…)

Spectacular Revolution

By Martine Rouleau, on 27 May 2016

Blog post for UCL Art Museum, Revolution under a King exhibition by Dr Susannah Walker, UCL Art History Department.

LDUCS_A_Versaille

Anonymous, A Versaille a Versaille, 1789, etching and engraving, UCL Art Museum

Despite its Enlightenment origins, one of the French Revolution’s legacies is a rich strain of macabre imagery that has entered popular culture: Marie-Antoinette’s hair turning grey at the prospect of the guillotine. The assassinated radical journalist Marat slumped in his bath. The apocryphal tale of the bals des victimes where survivors of the Terror were said to have worn short hair and a red ribbon at the throat in reference to the guillotined head.

The dark humour of popular prints may be at the origin of this cultural response. One bitterly ironic anonymous image of Revolutionary leader Robespierre imagines “having had all the French people guillotined [he] beheads the executioner with his own hand.”

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Specimen of the Week 241 – White-rumped ocean-runner

By ucwepwv, on 27 May 2016

This Friday I have a specimen for you that I picked simply because I like it:

LDUCZ-Y1540_IMG33 - Oceanodromus_leucorhoa-skeleton

LDUCZ-Y1540 Oceanodromus leucorhoa skeleton

This is the skeleton of a white-rumped ocean-runner (a literal translation of the scientific name Oceanodroma leucorhoa), but it’s more commonly known as: (more…)

Skullpture at the Grant Museum opens today

By Jack Ashby, on 26 May 2016

For our newest exhibition – Skullpture at the Grant Museum – twelve sculpture students from UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art have been invited to develop works in response to the Museum’s collections, science and history.

The new artworks – which relate to death and decay, extinction, cloning, and animal behaviour – have been placed among the Museum’s own skeletons, skulls and specimens preserved in fluid. The exhibition engages with animal and human encounters and transforms the historic zoological museum in ways that will leave visitors questioning whether some of the installations are playful or serious.

Dead as a Dodo © Will Spratley. A collection of rubber-chicken like dodo models, strung up as if in a butcher's window.

Dead as a Dodo © Will Spratley. A collection of rubber-chicken like dodo models, strung up as if in a butcher’s window.

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Specimen of the Week 240: Porcupine quills

By Dean W Veall, on 20 May 2016

LDUCZ-Z2237 Porcupine quills

LDUCZ-Z2237 Porcupine quills

Hello all, Dean Veall here. This week I bring you my specimen of the week. I can imagine what you’re wondering… has Dean chosen some sticks from the highly popular children’s game Ker-plunk? Has the acquisitions policy at the Grant Museum gone out the window? Well look closer dear reader, and you will see that these are in fact quills from a porcupine!

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Specimen of the Week 239: Bohemian fossil amphibian cast

By Tannis Davidson, on 13 May 2016

LDUCZ-W385 with overlay of illustration

LDUCZ-W385 Cochleosaurus sp. with overlay of original illustration from Fauna der Gaskohle und der Kalksteine der Permformation Bohmens 1879-1901

Try to imagine life 310 million years ago. It is the Carboniferous period – a time when the Earth experienced its highest levels of atmospheric oxygen leading to the growth of vast forests which would eventually be laid down and become the coal beds characteristic of this period.

Primitive amphibians were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates including the Temnospondyls which were mostly semi-aquatic and typically larger than most modern amphibians. Superificially, most resembled crocodiles with broad, flat heads and had scales, claws and bony body plates.

This week’s Specimen of the Week celebrates these early amphibians with a lovely example cast from the famous fossil gas-coal of the Czech Republic… (more…)

Best of the Beasts

By Will J Richard, on 9 May 2016

Best of the Beasts

There are about 7,000 animals or bits of animals on display in the museum and we know that can sometimes be a bit overwhelming. So to help some of our young (and young at heart) visitors navigate their way round the collection we’re proud to launch Best of the Beasts, our free new activity trail. And you get to learn some pretty extreme animal facts on the way round too. Ever wanted to know which of our 68,000 specimens is the…

 

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Specimen of the week 238: the bisected red panda head

By Will J Richard, on 6 May 2016

Hello! Will Richard here. This week I’ve chosen one of our bisected heads. They came to the Grant Museum from the Ferens Institute of Otolaryngology in 1991 and were originally collected (and studied) by Sir Victor Negus who literally wrote the book(s) on noses and throats. I like to think that this specimen was particularly helpful. It’s the…

LDUCZ-Z2273 bisected red panda head

LDUCZ-Z2273 bisected red panda head

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The Slade Rock Room Takeover – ‘Poison’

By Nick J Booth, on 5 May 2016

For the past three years MA sculpture students from the Slade School of Fine Art have been involved in an experiment creating work influenced by the Rock Room, the Geology Collections and the Earth Science Department here at UCL. Every year the resultant one day pop-up event has been totally different from the last, you can read about previous events here and here. This year marks the fourth instalment of the project, and the last in the Rock Room’s current home.

The Rock Room Slade Takeover will be open to the public between 12.30 – 4pm on Friday 13th May, while special selection of museum objects and books from UCL Special Collections will be on display between 1 – 2 on Wednesday 11th.

Slade - art works in the mineral display.

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This year’s theme is ‘poison’, which came about as a result of a separate student led pop-up earlier in the year. For the first time this year’s take over will be preceded by a workshop in the Rock Room on the Wednesday before, with the aim of  bringing together researchers, staff and students around the ‘poison’ theme.

Slade - art work in the Rock Room.

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