Smithsonian articles from March 2007

Smithsonian archives from March 2007

Against the grain: rebels by any name.(FROM THE EDITOR)
March 1, 2007... NOVELIST Francine Prose (A Changed Man, Blue Angel) says she has loved the work of Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio "for such a long time that I can't remember ever not knowing about him. He's very direct, and there's nothing...

My very first thought upon viewing the opening page photo of pronghorns crawling under barbed wire was, to paraphrase a former president.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... READERS RESPOND TO THE JANUARY ISSUE My very first thought upon viewing the opening page photo of pronghorns crawling under barbed wire was, to paraphrase a former president: Mr. Landowner, take down those fences! "End of the Road?" I...

Safe passage.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... THE BASIC IDEA of our national parks is that their permanent scenic, wildlife and cultural assets outweigh the short-term business profits that could be derived from exploiting the land. Saving the Grand Teton National Park herd of pronghorn...

Shattered peace.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... THE ANSWER to the question posed in Joshua Hammer's "Peace at Last?" is a resounding "not this time. "The Basque separatist group ETA's recent bombing of the Madrid airport left hope under a pile of rubble. I hope that Basques and Spaniards...

Signature shacks.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... "TIME AFTER TIME," on the photographic work of artist William Christenberry, really moved me. In travels around my home state of Florida, I recently began to despair at the loss of the kind of "vernacular architecture" that Christenberry has...

Face value.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... WHAT A DELIGHTFUL article on mug shots by Katy June-Friesen ("Arresting Faces"). Is this not schadenfreude on a broad scale? Are we peering into these scofflaw faces, thankful they were apprehended and we are not their victims? Is this that...

Best time.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... DAVA SOBEL is a wonderful writer, and her article about sundials, "The Shadow Knows," was entertaining and informative. Still, for my money, the best lines about a sundial were written many decades ago by the British poet and essayist Hilaire...

Slow food.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(Gray seals)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Gray seals have a surprising way to make their air last longer: "deferred food-processing." The marine mammals can stay submerged 20 minutes without coming up for a breath, gulping down as many fish as they can stomach. Most animals start...

Orphan flower finds family.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(Rafflesia arnoldii )(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... The world's largest flower, indigenous to Indonesia, has finally found a home on the tree of life. Reeking of rotting flesh, Rafflesia arnoldii has no leaves, stems or roots--features typically used to classify plants. But a Harvard-led study...

Holding ground.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(tiger population )(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... The largest study of a tiger population has yielded a rare bit of good news for the highly endangered cats. Researchers working in Nagarahole reserve in southern India, where tigers are relatively safe from poachers, set out camera traps for...

Gators in the gym.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)( insight into how birds fly)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Alligators on a treadmill have helped give scientists new insight into how birds fly. The key is a single ligament tying the upper arm to the shoulder joint. In alligators, which are in fact closely related to birds through a common...

Observed.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(Condylura cristata)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... NAME: Condylura cristata, or the star-nosed mole, a semiaquatic mammal native to eastern North America HIDDEN TALENT: Sniffing under water HIDDEN? WITH THAT NOSE? Yes. That "nose" is actually two nostrils surrounded by 22 appendages...

Operatic entrance: as Paris feted Queen Elizabeth II, photographer Bert Hardy found a circumstance to match her pomp.(INDELIBLE IMAGES)
March 1, 2007... THE SUN WAS SETTING on their empires, but neither the British nor the French were going quietly. The two powers, not always the closest of allies, had just tried to thwart Egypt's plans to nationalize the Suez Canal. The two nations were...

Curtains for the pallid sturgeon? Can biologists breed the "Dinosaurs of the Missouri" fast enough to stave off their extinction?(PHENOMENA AND CURIOSITIES)
March 1, 2007... IT'S COLD. Here on the North Dakota-Montana border they're predicting rain, then freezing rain, then snow, up to 15 inches. Not ideal fishing weather. Still, I have traveled to the confluence of the Missouri and the Yellowstone rivers with 15...

March anniversaries: momentous or merely memorable.(THIS MONTH IN HISTORY)
March 1, 2007... 260 YEARS AGO SHOCKING IDEAS In March 1747 Benjamin Franklin begins documenting his experiments with electricity in a series of letters to British friend Peter Collinson. "I never was before engaged in any study that so engrossed my...

Squirrelologist.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)
March 1, 2007... Armed with spoonfuls of peanut butter, Richard Thorington has become well acquainted with the Eastern gray squirrels across the street from the White House. A curator of mammals at the National Museum of Natural History, Thorington has been...

Dwarf galaxies caught speeding.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Nitya Kallivayalil didn't set out to change the way we think about our corner of the universe. But the 27-year-old doctoral student at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics may have done just that. By comparing images taken two years...

A man in full: a new biography depicts benefactor James Smithson as an exuberant, progressive man enamored of science.(FROM THE SECRETARY)(The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution and the Birth of the Smithsonian)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... JAMES SMITHSON'S MYSTERY has remained unsolved for a long time--181 years. In 1826, the English scientist willed the United States his large fortune "to found at Washington, under the name... Smithsonian institution, an establishment for the...

Comedy central: Phyllis Diller's archive holds a lifetime of proven punch lines.(THE OBJECT AT HAND)
March 1, 2007... "I'M NOT A COMEDIENNE," Phyllis Diller says, at home in Los Angeles, gently correcting the word I had used to describe what she does. "Comediennes may do other stuff, like acting or singing. I'm a comic, a hard-core stand-up, so I'm responsible...

Q & A.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(JAMES ROSENQUIST)(Interview)
March 1, 2007... JAMES ROSENQUIST's works are on view at both the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Hirshhorn. The pop artist spoke with the magazine's Courtney Jordan. WHEN YOU WERE STARTING OUT, YOU WORKED AS A BILLBOARD PAINTER IN NEW YORK CITY? I...

What's up.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... ENLIGHTENING Thomas Wilfred made "visual music" with mirrors and prisms (Study in Depth, 1959). Dan Flavin built minimalist sculptures out of plain fluorescent tubes. At the Hirshhorn until April 8, twenty-one modernists illuminate the artistic...

Rain forest rebel: in the Amazon, researchers documenting the ways of native peoples join forces with an embattled chief to stop illegal loggers and developers from destroying the earth's most precious wilderness.
March 1, 2007... Inside a thatched-roof schoolhouse in Nabekodabadaquiba, a village deep in Brazil's Amazon rain forest, Surui Indians and former military cartographers huddle over the newest weapons in the tribe's fight for survival: laptop computers,...

Catching up with "Old Slow Trot": stubborn and deliberate, general George Henry Thomas was one of the Union's most brilliant strategists. So why was he cheated by history?
March 1, 2007... OUT OF THE AUGUST NIGHT, James Gurley came galloping past the massive oak before Elizabeth Thomas' white plantation house. Get out! he shouted. Take your family and run! Now! The renegade slave leader Nat Turner was coming with a band of...

Reading between the lines: scientists with high-tech tools are deciphering lost writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes.
March 1, 2007... A THIN BEAM OF X-RAYS scans the writings of the legendary Greek scientist and mathematician Archimedes, a hidden text that may be the most important ancient scientific document discovered since the Renaissance. As faint lines emerge on a large...

Helsinki warming: the city of Sibelius, known as a center for innovative technology and design, now stakes its claim as an urban hotspot.(DESTINATIONEUROPE)
March 1, 2007... WHEN THE LONG northern winter finally ends, the Finnish capital of Helsinki returns slowly to life. Deathly pale residents, who look as if they have just emerged from confinement in a cellar, roost on the gray stone steps of Senate Square;...

Circling squares: a 360-degree perspective on some of Europe's most alluring public spaces.(DESTINATIONEUROPE)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... ANDREA PISTOLESI is quick to admit there's something odd about these photographs. "You look in front of and behind yourself at the same time," says the 50-year-old Florentine photographer. "It's not very normal." Indeed, his 360-degree...

Highlights & hotspots.(DESTINATIONEUROPE)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... VALENCIA, SPAIN Yachts set sail June 23 for the 156-year-old America's Cup (named after the original winning boat, not the USA). Seasick? Check out the architecture, including native son Santiago Calatrava's futuristic City of Arts and...

Next stop, squalor: is poverty tourism--"poorism," they call it--exploration or exploitation?(PRESENCE OF MIND)(Dharavi Squatter settlement in Mumbai, India as a tourist spot)
March 1, 2007... THE DHARAVI SQUATTER settlement in Mumbai is often described as the biggest slum in Asia. It sits between two rail lines in the northern part of the city, on a creek that once sustained a thriving fishery The creek is now a sump of sewage and...

Lads without plaids; Kiltless in Scotland: an action plan.(THE LAST PAGE)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Military officials said that Scottish soldiers were having to share their ceremonial kilts because defense chiefs had not finalized a contract to buy enough kilts to go around. At last count, there were just 320 kilts for 5,000 soldiers. ...