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Archive for August, 2016

Underwhelming Fossil Fish of the Month: August 2016

By Mark Carnall, on 31 August 2016

August is typically the month that people occupy themselves with science until the sports season begins again in the autumn. In fact the word summer comes from the Proto-Germanic sumur which roughly translates as ‘the season in which we do not occupy ourselves with sports but instead spend a lot of time doing science’* So with so many people doing science this summer, and who aren’t engaged in sport or watching or thinking about sport, I’m hoping that we can fulfil the mission of this blog post series. The humble mission of this monthly blog series featuring underwhelming fossil fish from the Grant Museum collection is:

all I’m asking you to do is look at it, observe it, take some time to ponder upon it and perhaps tell a friend about it. Together we’ll increase the global fossil fishteracy one fossil fish at a time.

Regular readers of this series will know that this isn’t sell-out science. There’s no record breakers here. All we have is a rather dull fossil fish to contemplate. Will we learn something? Probably not. Will it pass the time? Depends how fast you read I guess. So without further ado, loosen your belt of expectation and let’s see this month’s fragmented fossil fish. (more…)

Specimen of the Week 254 : Tailless Whip Scorpion

By zcbtgwg, on 26 August 2016

Hello again all! This Friday I present to you the spectacular and highly misunderstood tailless whip scorpion as my Specimen of the Week. I hope not only to describe some of its most interesting features, but also to slightly alleviate the concerns of any aspiring rain forest explorers out there who may be of an arachnophobic disposition: this one’s harmless. (more…)

Specimen of the Week 253 : Moroccan phosphate fossils

By Tannis Davidson, on 19 August 2016

LDUCZ-V1467 Moroccan phosphate fossil label

LDUCZ-V1467 Moroccan phosphate fossil label

This week’s Specimen of the Week is not one, but 48 individual specimens which make up a display box highlighting various fossil teeth from Morocco. Display boxes of this sort are not uncommon as they are a visually appealing way to showcase numerous small specimens not to mention an entrepreneurial solution to add value to otherwise inexpensive individual fossils. The Grant Museum’s display box is a rather nice example of this type containing fossil teeth of 19 different species of fish and marine reptiles: (more…)

Specimen of the Week 252 – The babirusa skull

By ucwepwv, on 12 August 2016

Happy Friday everyone! This week I’ve chosen a specimen of the week that has been used as an icon for the Grant Museum of Zoology and which represents one of the weirder looking critters with which we share the world – a species so strange that it grows its teeth through its face and on the rare occasion, back into its own head. That’s right, it’s the…

LDUCZ-Z111 Babyrousa babyrussa skull

LDUCZ-Z111 Babyrousa babyrussa skull

(more…)

Specimen of the Week 251: the electric eel

By Will J Richard, on 5 August 2016

Hello blog-folks. Will Richard here picking another favourite from the 68,000 options that make up the Grant Museum. And this time it’s a shocker. Literally.

LDUCZ-V252 preserved electric eel

LDUCZ-V252 preserved electric eel

(more…)

Why Pokémon Go is a gift to museums

By Jack Ashby, on 2 August 2016

Pidgeotto on the loose in the Tanks at Tate Modern (C) Jack Ashby

Pidgeotto on the loose in the Tanks at Tate Modern
(C) Jack Ashby

As a museum person and member of UCL’s Digital Humanities team, I was recently asked to make a brief contribution to an article in The Guardian about the impact of Pokémon Go on museums. I argued that the new smartphone game has been a gift to the museum sector, and I thought I would expand on that here.

Since it was released in the UK last month, Pokémon Go has been nothing short of a phenomenon. It is impossible to walk down a street and not spot people gazing at their screens as they try to catch digital creatures or stock up on supplies as they pass Pokéstops. It is the Pokéstop aspect of the game that I believe is the gift that museums have been given.

The gift of Pokéstops

(more…)

Project Pickle – Conserving our Specimens Preserved in Fluid

By Emilia L Kingham, on 1 August 2016

Fluid preserved specimens newly conserved

Fluid preserved specimens newly conserved

Over the past year, UCL Museums’ conservation team have been focussing our efforts on the the specimens preserved in fluid at the Grant Museum. We’re calling it Project Pickle*.

Before we could start conserving the objects we had to establish the scale of the task, so we could decide how to plan the work. We went through the entire fluid specimen store, surveying a whopping 3,787 specimens to determine what treatments each of them needed.

This initial phase took many months to complete and involved the help of student volunteers and a student placement. The result of that survey means that we can now quantify how many specimens are in good, fair, poor or unacceptable condition with the aim to prioritize conserving the specimens in the worst condition.  So why do fluid preserved specimens need conservation and how do they get to be in an ‘unacceptable condition?’

(more…)