Smithsonian articles from April 2007

Smithsonian archives from April 2007

Winners: in praise of a city's storied past and a Thoroughbred's spirit.(City overview)(Editorial)
April 1, 2007... AS A YOUNG MAN, says Andrew Lawler, he came under the spell of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet and "his mesmerizing vision of a diverse, polyglot, exciting Mediterranean city with a rich past that is almost invisible. Unlike Rome, it's...

The Pardon.(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2007... READERS RESPOND TO THE FEBRUARY ISSUE Regarding "The Pardon," it was almost amusing to listen to some of those who were the most vocal in their criticism of President Ford back in 1974 recently scramble to declare that he had done the...

Scar story.(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2007... CAROLINE ALEXANDER'S "Faces of War" mentions the pioneering facial reconstruction surgery of Sir Harold Gillies in World War I. Gillies continued the good work during World War II as chief facial surgeon for the British Army. My brother,...

Prize find.(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2007... IN MY LATE FATHER'S pipe collection there is a charm (inset) that appears identical to that shown in "Sea Island Strata," page 23. The design, of a man with a feathered headdress, is typical of representations of Native Americans in everything...

Kid world.(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2007... I WAS ONE OF THOSE South of Grand(ers) who grew up in Des Moines around the same time as author Bill Bryson ("Boys' Life"). Last June, I traveled back to Des Moines and drove around the old neighborhood. Lo and behold, there were kids...

Recurring beauty.(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2007... I WAS STRUCK by the contemporary look of the beautiful Pre-Raphaelite women ("Incurably Romantic"). With their long-limbed, slender bodies, tumbling hair and dewy mouths, they bring to mind the models and actresses of today. The exploitation...

Old hands.(Chimpanzees)(stone tools)(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... Chimpanzees used stone tools at least 4,300 years ago, back in the human Stone Age, according to a study of the first known prehistoric ape site, in Cote d'Ivoire. A University of Calgary-led group found ancient rocks that were very similar to...

That loud noise? Just the earth venting.(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... Far below the ocean surface, hydrothermal vents--cracks in the earth's crust that spew superheated, mineral-rich water--provide energy and shelter for weird worms, crustaceans and other creatures that live in complete darkness. University of...

Fore flight.(Microraptor gui )(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... It was in 2001 that scientists in China discovered the fossil of a 2.5-foot-long flying dinosaur that lived about 125 million years ago. Microraptor gui had four wings, with feathered hind limbs as well as forelimbs. Texas Tech researchers,...

Observed.(rhabdophis tigrinus)(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... NAME: Rhabdophis tigrinus, an Asian snake EXISTENTIAL QUESTION: If a snake can't make venom, can it be venomous? PRACTICAL ANSWER: Yes. R. tigrinus can steal venom, say herpetologists from Old Dominion University who recently showed...

Why misery loves company.(Emperor penguin)(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... As fans of March of the Penguins know, male emperor penguins incubate their mates' eggs while crowded together, eating nothing for months as winter temperatures drop to -20[degrees] Fahrenheit, and females hunt for food. In the first long-term...

The deciding moment: how did Henri Cartier-Bresson do it? The master photographer's newly reconstructed scrapbook offers a fresh look.(Henri Cartier-Bresson: Scrapbook, Photographs 1932-1946)
April 1, 2007... "WATCH OUT FOR LABELS," Robert Capa once told his friend and fellow photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004). "They're going to stick you with one you won't get rid of: that of a little Surrealist photographer. You're going to be lost,...

Lost city of Powhatan: the Algonquian settlement crucial to the survival of Jamestown 400 years ago has been found. Finally.(DIGS)
April 1, 2007... TRUDGING THROUGH SWAMP MUD on a cold February day in 1608, Capt. John Smith and a small band of armed men approached a rickety wooden bridge. On the other side of a sluggish creek was the capital of the powerful Algonquian chief Powhatan, who...

Interview Roy Richard Grinker, Anthropologist, Washington, D.C.: his new book offers a scholar's--and father's--perspective on autism.(Interview)
April 1, 2007... YOUR TEENAGE DAUGHTER, ISABEL, HAS A FORM OF AUTISM. HOW HAS SHE AFFECTED YOUR RESEARCH? Seeing how much progress she's made makes me more eager to tell people that autism is not necessarily a devastating diagnosis, that people with autism can...

Open sesame: the Masons' lavish Washington, D.C. temple has become a must-see landmark for the curious and conspiracy-minded.(POINTS OF INTEREST)
April 1, 2007... MAMMOTH SPHINXES guard the House of the Temple of the Scottish Rite, a formidable neo-Classical building in the heart of Washington, D.C. Inside, Egyptian hieroglyphics adorn a soaring atrium. The building's nine-foot-thick walls hold human...

April anniversaries: momentous or merely memorable.(THIS MONTH IN HISTORY)
April 1, 2007... 100 YEARS AGO GO NAVY U.S. Naval Academy bandmaster Charles "Zimmy" Zimmerman copyrights Anchors Aweigh, the football march he composed for the class of 1907. With words by Midshipman Alfred Miles--Sail Navy down the field and sink the...

Young at art.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(Maggie Michael)
April 1, 2007... Saturday morning, 10 o'clock: The Hirshhorn Museum lobby is full of children. Several glide by on Heelys, those hip sneakers on wheels. A woman warns, "No, Eliza, you cannot lick the sculptures like an ice-cream cone!" The kids meet up with one...

Bird flu's route to North America?(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... Researchers have a new theory about how avian influenza is most likely to reach the United States: through live poultry and poultry products imported from Asia and other infected regions to Latin America, where it could spread to wild fowl that...

Hot topics: an ice-diving course in Svalbard, Norway, is only the tip of the Smithsonian science iceberg.(FROM THE SECRETARY)
April 1, 2007... THIS MONTH, a small group of scientists will meet in Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, the northernmost community in the world. (Year-round population: 30.) There, among Norwegian fiords, less than 800 miles from the North Pole, the scientists will drill...

Flower power: an imaginative installation recalls an all-but-forgotten art movement.(THE OBJECT AT HAND)
April 1, 2007... ITALY'S early-to mid-20th-century Futurists eventually ended up--wouldn't you know?--haunted by their past. Led by the Italian poet Filippo Marinetti, who published The Futurist Manifesto in 1909, the movement was, appropriately enough, ahead...

Q & A.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(Herb Alpert)(Interview)
April 1, 2007... HERB ALPERT donated $300,000 to the Smithsonian Institution to support Jazz Appreciation Month each April through 2009. The famed trumpeter, bandleader (The Tijuana Brass) and record-company founder (A & M Records) spoke with the magazine's...

What's Up.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)
April 1, 2007... CRAFTY "He's a superhero we came up with," say Albuquerque-based Lisa Holt and Harlan Reano of their ceramic Pueblo Fire Warrior. The native American potters join 119 other artists and artisans at the 25th Smithsonian Craft Show, at the...

Raising Alexandria: more than 2,000 years after Alexander the Great founded the city, archaeologists are discovering its fabled remains, from the likely site of Cleopatra's palace to pieces of an astonishing lighthouse that was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.(City overview)
April 1, 2007... THERE'S NO SIGN of the grand marbled metropolis founded by Alexander the Great on the busy streets of this congested Egyptian city of five million, where honking cars spouting exhaust whiz by shabby concrete buildings. But climb down a rickety...

Curse of the Devil's dogs: traditionally viewed as dangerous pests, Africa's wild dogs have nearly been wiped out. But thanks to new conservation efforts, the smart, sociable canines appear ready to make a comeback.
April 1, 2007... SBONISO BLESSING ZWANE, a wildlife biology research assistant, drives me along bumpy dirt trails through the rugged hills of Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in South Africa. Rhino mothers and their calves graze alongside zebras; wildebeests, elephants...

Digitizing the hanging court: Cutpurses! Blackguards! Fallen women! The Proceedings of the Old Bailey is an epic chronicle of crime and vice in early London. Now anyone with a computer can search all 52 million words.
April 1, 2007... BY THE TIME the hangman finished him off, Jonathan Wild had few friends. In his own way he had been a public servant--a combination bounty hunter and prosecutor who tracked down thieves and recovered stolen property, a useful figure in...

The Zuni way: though they embrace computers and TV, the secret of the tribe's unity lies in fealty to their past.
April 1, 2007... TWO BRIDESMAIDS are helping Deidre Wyaco, a Zuni Indian, dress for her big day. She dons her tribe's traditional wedding costume--white moccasins and deer-hide leggings wound from ankle to knee; a black wool tunic layered over a white blouse;...

The nature of glass: prolific sculptor Dale Chihuly plants his vitreous visions in a Florida garden.
April 1, 2007... AN ENCOUNTER with Dale Chihuly's works is always a spectacular reminder that glass is not just something to see through or drink out of. His latest exhibition, at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida, features 15...

Barbaro's legacy: the effort to save the fallen champion shows how far equine medicine has come in recent years. And how far it still has to go.
April 1, 2007... THE TROPHY rested on a mantel in their family room, beside an oil painting. It was elegant, though small. Roy Jackson easily lifted it down and, in the thin gray light of winter, offered it for closer admiration. Engraved in gold was an event:...

Two men and a portrait: one wondered how an artist brings paint to life. The other showed him.(PRESENCE OF MIND)
April 1, 2007... THE AMERICAN PAINTER Thomas S. Buechner is best known for his portraits. His is the portrait of Alice Tully that hangs in Alice Tully Hall, in Lincoln Center, and his portrait of a teenage girl named Leslie is in the collection of the...

Good for the goose: the Untouchables meets the food network.(THE LAST PAGE)
April 1, 2007... Today Chicago has taken a lead in humane food production. The city council voted this week to ban the production and sale of foie gras, the first U.S. city to do so. --The Associated Press, April28, 2006 A FOOD NETWORK SPECIAL...