Museum in Review: Oxford University Natural History Museum

Hey Team!

Two weekends ago I had the pleasure of visiting Oxford, England for a short afternoon. I was dashing around the city trying to take in the sights, but one thing I couldn't rush was my visit to their Natural History Museum.

The Oxford University Natural History Museum

Now, I think I have an obligation to visit every NHM I can in every city that I visit. I've been to a few already, and rarely am I disappointed. Oxford was no exception. Even with some infamous museums within it's radius (see the National NHM in London), the Oxford museum definitely held it's own.

And goodness, did it feel British! As modern as it is, between the building itself and their setup, it might have been the 1800s still - lots of glass cases and labels, and some of the specimens have been on display since it opened!

Oxford as a university has been around since before 1100 A.D. So it's been there for a while. And during its reign it has educated or played home to some of the greatest minds in history. Especially for natural sciences.

So it comes to no surprise that The NHM has quite a few nods of appreciation to quite a few of these gentlemen. One of the most noted being Charles Darwin, who's Origin of Species was greatly debated in 1860. They had an excellent and informative display about evolution and Darwin's theories, as well as some fun facts about the man himself - everything a budding biologist would want to read and hear on a trip to a museum!

***

Some other fun things I saw and read at the museum:

Dodo

They have a stuffed dodo and it's skeleton on display the museum. This was my first dodo! They really are ridiculous looking birds - how depressing that they are extinct! I feel like the dodo display has been around since forever, but it would have been nice to see more about modern examples of extinction.

Dodo! Skeleton, cast of legs, and taxidermy specimen

Dinosaurs

I know you don't have to travel all the way to England to see a T-Rex skeleton, but while you're here, you should come check it out! And who knew that so many dinosaur fossils and bones have been found in England? I didn't, until I came to the museum!

T-Rex! Roar!

Marine Mammal Skeletons

Okay, so obviously I just love these, but they have a bunch of skeletons in ascending size hanging above your head - they don't have room for the biggest of the big, but their collection is still impressive!

Marine mammal skeletons - from bottlenose dolphin up to minke whale

Alice in Wonderland

Did you know the Lewis Carroll was a deacon at a church in Oxford, and a student and Professor at the university? I didn't, until I came to Oxford. They are very proud of it, so much so there is a display at the NHM with all the animals mentioned in his various Alice and associated books.

The white rabbit in the corner is always late

Tactile Displays

Okay, sometimes I am so much a child at heart that the instant I see a "Do Not Touch" sign I have an intense need to touch it. I manage to control myself but man, does it hurt!

Not Anymore!

The Oxford NHM knows that kids and grown-up kids alike have this strange need to touch things. So along with all the objects behind glass and railings, they have some out on the floor that they actually ask you to touch! Dream come true! Probably some of them are casts or replicas, but the stones, some of the fossils and definitely the animals were 100% real and I touched them all! As someone who has worked in a museum I know how much touching things is very, very bad, so it's a major bonus when a museum has things out (that clearly aren't too valuable or can't get easily damaged) for the public to play with. I was as giddy as the 6 year old I was following behind, just touching it all.

That's me touching an ammonite fossil!

**

Obviously this is just the tip of the iceberg. It's not an overwhelmingly large museum, but it has quite the collection. I know my reviews usually just focus on animals, and even then primarily mammals, but their plant, bird, insect and rock and mineral displays were equally impressive.

Insect display

If you are in Oxford and looking for a way to enjoy a few hours indoors (just after leaving I was caught in a flash storm - that would have been a good time to be inside!), I highly recommend the NHM. You'll see amazing specimens that have been on display for centuries right alongside recent discoveries. You'll learn a bit about England and a lot about the world. You'll see a museum at it's best and best of all, you'll see it for free!

So thank you Oxford University Natural History Museum, for a perfect finish to a perfect afternoon in Oxford.

Speak Loud!

You can visit their website and get all details about the museum here

TV in Review: Shark Week 2013

SHARK WEEK

RAWR! This past week was shark week on Discovery channel. One of the few times that all of us who love marine mammals seriously consider switching professions. One of the few times where people are rooting for the predator. One of the few times we can laugh at the stupidity of people around wild animals without feeling like traitors.

This year, however, was severely disappointing. Discovery Channel, once upon a time you were a channel for learning and, well, discovery. Now I'm surprised you haven't picked up Jersey Shore.

The shows they did for shark week were all show, little to no learning. In fact, to kick it off, they played a "documentary" about scientists going on the "hunt" for the Megalodon, an ancient shark species thought to be extinct.

Except their scientists were paid actors. Their "shark expert" was a shark filmographer. And their evidence... was staged.

I mean, what the heck!? At least have the decency not to besmirch the good name of marine biologists everywhere, who were watching this saying "this is the least scientifically accurate show I've ever seen."

And it didn't stop there. These shows were all about the sights and sounds and a couple explosions. What happened to educating people on sharks, and also getting to watch some dramatized re-enactments of shark attacks that, oh I don't know, actually happened??

Sprinkled in were some standing favourites of DC, including Mythbusters and River Monsters, and at least those held some science, as much as they usually do, but they have the disclaimers that they are not real scientists and that's not the true point of their shows.

Shark Week 2013, you were a major dissapointment. Not too sure if I'll be interested in 2014.

And I'll stick with my whales, thank you very much.

Speak Loud!

Museum in Review: Canadian Museum of Nature

Hey Team!

So when I'm not being a marine biologist, I wear many, many different hats. Including a guide at the Manitoba Museum in the youth programs. All just a long way of saying I know my museums and what makes them good, and what makes them bad.

And let me tell you, the Canadian Museum of Nature is good.

I know that as a national museum, they probably get a lot of funding. Which lets them maintain the museum and keep all the amazing species and specimens that are contained inside that building. But what impressed me the most was the educational supplementary material all around the museum.

First, the diversity of the museum: a dinosaur hall, following through into prehistoric mammals and then their modern counterparts. Lots of skeletons, lots of models and lots of information! Both for adults and kids, this museum is really here to teach the public about the natural world around them!

dinosaur skeletons

Dinosaur models

Polar bear model

My favourite hall, of course, was the ocean hall. I don't think I could have imagined a museum design better for teaching people about the oceans. It helps them though that they have a baby blue whale skeleton as their centrepiece.

Baby blue whale skeleton

And while we're at it, let's show people a world they've never imagined. Thermal vents on the ocean floor: a true alien world!

Diorama of a thermal vent

 And of course, it wouldn't be a Canadian museum if we didn't mention the Arctic... with an entire kids-friendly interpretive area where they get to "be researchers in the Arctic "in a "real research vessel". I didn't grow up with any of this, I'm terrified to think what would have happened if I did.

Model of a beluga in the Arctic research kids centre

 And finally, a game to teach kids about water conservation. Thank you Canada!

A dice and piece game teaching kids all about water conservation

Add a geology hall and lots of pretty gemstones to the end, and you have an outstanding museum that I think really hit it out of the park. Not to mention the beautiful building it's all housed in, and the very friendly staff that work there.

If you are in Ottawa and it's a gross day outside, take the opportunity to go through the Canadian Museum of Nature. I can guarantee you'll learn something!

Speak Loud!

their website: http://nature.ca/en/home

Book in Review: The Story of B

An American priest crosses the ocean on the trail of a man known as “B”, with a singular mission: to hear the message that B is carrying and to see if he is what the Lutheran church has always feared – the Antichrist.

What JF discovers is that B’s message might be far greater than anything the church could have ever thought – the message on how to save the world.

From Amazon

**

I should write the backs of books. Seriously. That took me like, 5 minutes and it’s been almost 3 months since I read the book.

The Story of B is a sort-of sequel to Ishmael – a sequel in that it is set more recently than Ishmael, and they mention Ishmael in the story. But other than that, it is essentially a book onto itself, though the backbone is the same: To save the world from its utter destruction, we must change the way we see humans in nature.

But, where Ishmael took more of a straight historical view, mixing in religion and biology where suitable, Story of B sort of does the opposite: It takes the religious and biological views, and mixes in history just to keep things clean.

**

Personally, I liked and disliked this approach. I definitely liked Ishmael more, but then I still need to read Story of B at least two more times before I will pretend I actually understand it past the “big picture”. But, as someone who lives both in the scientific and religious world, it’s hard for me to sympathize with media that puts the two at odds – although I know that there is a history of it and in fanatical and extreme cases there still is.

Maybe it’s the moderate in me, but I always find it difficult when people blame religion for anything – even if it’s not my religion.

But what I did like about this book was all the biology in it! Ishmael had it, of course. You can’t talk about nature without talking about biology, it’s one of the other. But it was a lot more pronounced in Story of B, using terms and concepts straight out of my second year ecology class to explain how messed up we are in this world.

Now, I read a PDF version off of my laptop, as I am travelling and books are difficult to carry around (although how come every time I travel, determined not to bring books with me, I always come home with at least two?), and the way the PDF was set up was they put all the “lecture material” (AKA the nitty gritty details) at the very end, so you could get the overall premise and all the action from the book, then if your brain wasn’t complete mush, you could try to get through about 100 pages (actual pages, because it was a PDF) of all the details that make his argument valid.

I was so overwhelmed by the end of the actually book that I got through about half of the lecture material. I was also travelling, which made it difficult to find time to read on my laptop. So I sort of wish they had split it up in the book. But maybe they do in the print version. I don’t know. If someone does know, leave a comment!

So, in summary, Story of B is a great book that really makes you think, but I personally preferred Ishmael. All my atheist readers (you know who you are, even if I don’t), maybe you’ll like it more than I did, but I think anyone who reads it will get something awesome out of it.

I think I’ll end with a quote from the book, because it’s sort of the central principle, and it makes total and complete sense – and if it doesn’t, it means you need to read the book.

“If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision. It will not be saved by people with old minds and new programs.”

Speak Loud!

Buy the book at Amazon

And at Chapters

Book in Review: Ishmael

While work is quiet, here's another book review to hopefully make you think.

From Amazon

I first read this book in grade 11, for my AP Environmental Science class. It was a good class, and it was a good book.

But time passes, you read a lot more books, and you forget some of the things you read.

While I never forgot the concept that was Ishmael, I did forget the details. So I read it again.

And man, what a good book.

**

A man, looking for himself and his place in the world, reads a notice in the paper: Teacher seeking pupil who wants to change the world. When he arrives he finds himself face to face with a full grown gorilla, named Ishmael.

Ishmael takes us on a journey through the history of mankind, detailing out the relationship between humans and the rest of nature. Ishmael tries to teach us our mistakes, and how we can learn from them.

**

So I will be the first to say that I don't think I really understood the book when I was 16, and I don't think I completely understand it now. I think I'll have to read it at least 3-4 more times before I can feel comfortable explaining the book.

But what I did take away from it, and did understand, was completely thought provoking. Everything we think of as human history is wrong. Like,really wrong.

I don't really know how much I can say about Ishmael without giving the book away, or getting something wrong. But the premise is at a certain point in human history, we made a choice. This choice took us away from what we are, animals living within nature, to what we thought we were, which is above nature.

And at that point, we brought upon our own extinction.

**

Of course, topics like this are controversial. There are people that don't believe that our environment is in trouble and that we are simply following the path of evolution.

Except that how come no other animal has made this choice? There are other animals with the same level of intelligence as humans, but they don't dominate the world like we do.

And who is to say that we are done evolving? Why do humans believe we are the pinnacle of evolution? According the the theory of evolution, evolution never stops. So how come Homo sapiens sapiens believe we are where evolution stops?

I know this isn't quite as in depth as my last review, but this book is a lot easier to ruin. It's not a long book, but it is still not an easy read. I recommend it if you have the time, and if you are interested in changing the way you see yourself in the world.

Speak Loud!

From Amazon here
From Chapters here

Zoo in Review: The Jerusalem Biblical Zoo

Hey Team!

If you would have told me that I would have used the Reviews section of this blog to talk about things other than books or documentaries... I wouldn't have believed you. Actually though, never would have thought to review places.

But today I spent the day at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, and man - what a zoo!!

Now, it was cold and rainy and foggy, so I only got to see about half the animals, but what a did see really blew me away!

So for the most part, the Zoo was created to breed, conserve and display animals that were mentioned in the bible (hence the Zoo's name). However, that was a few decades ago, and now the Zoo has grown into a zoo displaying species from all over the world, although still with a focus on North African, Middle Eastern and Western Asian species.

And so much conservation! It seemed like every species was critically endangered or threatened and the JBZ was working on breeding programs or rehabilitation programs with every species! It might be an exaggeration, but it seemed that way to me.

Parrots, raptors, and penguins! Turtles, crocodiles, and frogs. Lions, tigers and bears (oh my!). Asian elephants! All of them in some kind of trouble, and the JBZ is here to help (alongside a lot of other zoos. Props to them!).

Asian Elephant  - Indian sub-species

Persian Fallow Deer - once thought to be extinct!

Black-footed penguins - one of JBZ's many projects

Giant Tortoise - critically endangered

And around every corner were signs that talked about environmental conservation! There was even the "Ecological Maze", with little signs throughout it talking about ecological concerns, like pollution, and their solutions, like breeding programs! And at the end of the maze, there's a sign about "How you can help".

Cheesy, yes. For kids? Absolutely. Educational? Yes!

Man, I feel like I could go on forever! In the rainforest building, signs all over explaining all the problems facing rainforests, and others explaining why they are important. There were also signs about the importance of "primal knowledge", which is the knowledge that indigenous people have about nature. Those signs really got to me, because of my recent completion of Ishmael (keep an eye out for the book review!).

Last thing I think I really want to point out from the zoo is their "West Side Story" exhibit. Now, this is NOT a musical (I was disappointed as well), and the Hebrew title makes a lot more sense. In Hebrew, the exhibit is called "The Story of Tippy". Tippy is a water drop that falls to the Earth in the Kinneret (aka Sea of Galilee), and moves his way through the Israeli waterways, India and Australia. And everywhere he goes, he sees how people have been destroying their water systems and the implications. And every time he learns that it's people's fault, he gets more and more bad.

The "West Side Story" exhibit - the story of the aquatic concerns

Fish! That might be extinct soon if we don't help!

This story is done in cartoons throughout the exhibit, along with an explanation of the problem, and examples of species of fish that are being effected.

To me, this took the cake. I might have teared up a bit, just because I was so impressed with how much the Zoo talked about all the negative impacts Israel is having on their aquatic environments. I mean, it's their zoo, but they aren't afraid to say "Hey, we're not perfect, and what we do matters."

Basically, of you find yourself in Israel sometime in the summer, and you just happen to have a free afternoon in Jerusalem with nothing to do, hop on a 33 bus and get yourself to the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo. In a past post I talked about the pros and cons of zoos, and I said that the point of zoos (hopefully) is education and awareness. There's a lot of controversy around this statement, that they don't really work that way. But I honestly and truly believe that if there is only one zoo in the world really trying hard to make education, awareness and conservation it's focus, it's the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo.

A big indicator: They only charged me half price admission because the day was rainy and cold and a bunch of the animals weren't on display. Doesn't sound like a money-grabbing enterprise to me.

Speak Loud!

Book in Review: Elephants on the Edge

Hey Team!

Okay, I am a bad, bad blogger. I know this. I knew it when I started blogging. While I like to pretend I have interesting things to say occasionally, I also like to pretend I'm really busy (but if I broke down my time usage, I think a lot of it is laziness). So I haven't blogged in a bit, even though I've wanted to talk about this book for about a month now.

So welcome to a new feature of the blog: book reviews! Sometimes you read books that change your life. I have come across a lot of these types of books, but most of them don't really make the grade of this blog.

Except this one.

Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us About Humanity is a book written by G.A. Bradshaw that takes a look into the minds and lives of elephants, and how we relate ourselves as humans to them.

That description does not do this book justice. The book looks at the history of elephants and people interactions in Africa, India and the United States. The book looks at how science has proven that elephants are sensitive, intelligent, emotional beings. The book looks at the neurological and psychological similarities ad differences between humans and elephants. The book reminds us that we have been mistreating these amazing animals for as long as they can remember (and it's true that they remember way longer than we do; it's in the book).

Elephants have always been in my top five animals list. I think my family knew it before I did. In my room, second to figurines of dolphins, I have more elephant figurines than anything else (3 wooden ones, a metal one and a white one that I am 80% sure is not ivory). And recently I have had a lot of really neat ideas swirling around my head connecting people to whales to elephants, in terms of behaviour and sociality.

So a book all about the connections between elephants and humans? I was intrigued, and after the introduction I was hooked. I read at every opportunity for 2 days and I wish I wasn't such a fast reader because I wanted to continue reading it.

I don't know how to do a book review, but I don't think it's about going chapter by chapter and explaining the book. However some highlights of the book seem right to me.

**

Back in 2000, there were reports of young bull (male) elephants attacking rhinos across South Africa. These attacks were fatal, sexual and above all, perplexing. The book tries to explain not only the reasons behind the attacks, but what we can learn about human violence and potential solutions by looking at these attacks. The book also tries to make us understand why we find the attacks to be so disturbing, even though normally interspecies (between species) violence is not something new (welcome to the predator-prey relationship).

What the book explains is that unlike humans, elephants are able to be intelligent, emotional, social animals without resorting to violence. They live in structured herds and there are never fights for dominance within herds or between them. They are a peaceful species, both to other elephants and other animals (self-defense aside). Which is why elephants attacking rhinos blew the minds of scientists and public alike. A normal reviewer might tell you what they discovered, but really, read the book.

**

Humans have not treated elephants well in a really long time. In Africa they put it back to European colonization. In the United States they put it back to the first circus elephant. In India... harder to put a date on it. But it's been a while since we've shown elephants the respect we should. Which is interesting, because study after study show that they think and feel emotional and psychological stress just as humans do. So the circus trainers who chain and isolate their elephants, the hunters who bring down a cow (female) and live-capture the calf (baby), the Mahout who beats their elephants into submission, all create victims of abuse and trauma that show the exact same symptoms that humans do. Time and time again in the book, they show examples of elephants with PTSD, depression and suicidal tendencies. Sound familiar?

And it's not subjective. Neurological tests on humans and elephants show that their brains are behaving in exactly the same way after these major life-altering traumas.

So while we as people speak out about genocides of people, call isolating children abuse and combat domestic violence against women, we turn away from the exact same abuse and genocide in a species that reacts in the exact same way. And when humans rebel against their abuse, they are freedom fighters (and more power to them). When elephants rebel (and trust me, they are smart enough to understand revenge and vengeance), we kill them and call them terrors.

I don't really see the fairness, do you? For more examples and information, read the book.

**

I think I could go on for days, and ask any of my coworkers, I did. This book made me wonder about how we treat animals in general, how many other species might be at our level (or higher) in intelligence and emotion, but we can so simply turn away. Now of course, I just finished eating chicken for lunch, so I don't know how much I have changed, but thinking about it is the first step, right?

And as a marine biologist, I easily moved Bradshaw's arguments toward my own loves, whales and dolphins. Clearly cetaceans are brilliant and feeling animals with complex social systems, but just as clearly we are able to turn a blind eye to their inappropriate use and killings. Or we see it, feel sad for a day, but then move on.

There are more movements for the freedom of people against abuse (killing included) than animals. Which I understand, we are a selfish species. And I am NOT saying these are bad. I'm just saying it's unfair, because why shouldn't animals with equal-human (I hate the term near-human. When was the last time whales started Ocean War I?) intelligence get equal human rights? The right to food, habitat, and safety? How hard are those, really?

I don't know if I did this book justice. The elephants in it are exceptional stories, as are the people who have devoted their lives to saving them. The science is sound and the scientists she cites are at the top of the field of elephant biology. There were times where I was reading stories or more often than not statistics, where I had to put the book down and walk away, because of the overwhelming sadness that came from reading it. But I could only stay away for about 2 minutes before the book pulled me back into itself. It's an addicting read.

I recommend it to every biologist, if only just to make us think about the way we ourselves use animals in the name of science. Do we have the right? And of course, I recommend it to every human soul, to make us rethink the way we treat each other, but above all, how we treat animals. Because isn't one of the early warning signs someone might be a serial killer is animal abuse?

Think about it. Read the book.

Speak Loud.

Buy the book from Amazon
Or from Chapters

Because I am not kidding.