en-us Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000 ]]> http://www.mos.org/web_media/rss_logo.gif http://www.mos.org 122 21 Some of history's great scientists did their best work when employing all of their senses to better observe their world. This renovated, updated exhibit (formerly The Observatory: Seeing the Unseen) is packed with interactive components that encourage you to exercise your powers of perception. See what you can discover when you pay attention to your senses, and learn about ways technology can extend our reach beyond what we can perceive on our own. Visitors will explore the world around them using all of the senses: sight, hearing, touch, and smell. Test the sensitivity of your fingers, explore the limits of your hearing, find hidden shapes, or identify a familiar melody. To supplement our own bodies' capabilities, we have developed technologies to help us extend our senses—to help us perceive things that are too fast, too small, too far away, or simply invisible to the naked eye. Use a microscope to examine insects and pond life, or find the hidden crown in every splash of milk. See a sound wave, and identify images taken by our scanning electron microscope (SEM), capable of magnifying objects up to 200,000 times. The SEM is demonstrated periodically in Take a Closer Look. Information@mos.org Exhibit Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000 senses,,sight,,hearing,,touch,,smell Vision is a complex process, and the human brain has developed some very clever shortcuts to help us sort the useful visual information from the useless. Many of the illusions in this exhibit exploit these shortcuts for an entertaining learning experience. Seeing seems to be the ultimate form of understanding, but vision (and other senses) can be full of deceptive tricks. Visitors to this exhibit will encounter dozens of examples of images that on closer examination are not what they appear to be at first glance. Lines that look curved are in fact straight; shapes that look like they are different sizes are actually the same. Hands-on demonstrations allow visitors to "take apart" illusions by sliding various layers back and forth with surprising results: black and white pattern disks reveal colors when you spin them; random patterns reveal spirals and circles when you overlay them; still images appear to blink, and pictures become invisible and then reappear. There are also two dozen reproductions of paintings and drawings by artists who use perceptual tricks to create astonishing images of impossible buildings and ambiguous figures. In addition, four computer stations allow you to delve more deeply into these and other illusions and help you understand some of their underlying cognitive principles. Information@mos.org Exhibit Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 optical,illustion,,optical,,illusion,,vision Get a feel for New England's natural environment with these classic dioramas. In addition to these windows on wide-ranging landscapes, the exhibit's model birds, casts of feet, antlers, beaks and other touchable elements make this an interactive experience for curious visitors. Observe deciduous woods, salty beaches, ocean cliffs and other New England habitats, and see how they look, sound, feel, and smell. Visitors can hear the sound of a beaver smacking its tail against the water in alarm, and understand how the adaptations of New England wildlife resemble human tools. Represented here are the Katahdin woods, the Maine coast, Crane's Beach, Wildcat Mountain, New Hampshire's Squam Lake, and the Green Mountains of Vermont. All are located in New England within a 150-mile radius, but they are quite varied in their climate, vegetation, and wildlife. The backgrounds of these and many of the Museum's dioramas were painted by the famous artist Frances Lee Jaques. He was famous for his ability to blend his background paintings seamlessly with the three-dimensional foregrounds of dioramas. He painted actual locations rather than generalized habitats. Jaques' wife, so the story goes, would sneak into the hall while he was on his lunch break and paint little gremlins in hidden locations of his backgrounds. Look for her handiwork in the Crane's Beach diorama. Information@mos.org Exhibit Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 moose,,diorama,,crane,beach,,mural,,jaques Sunlight is the world' s largest energy resource, and more energy in the form of sunlight reaches Earth every hour than humans consume in a year. In this exhibit, visitors can learn how we can make use of all of this energy. Photovoltaic cells (also called solar cells) allow us to convert sunlight into electricity. Learn about these cells that can enable cars to be powered only by the sun, and see how electricity can be generated from placing panels on your roof. You can also check out a backpack that will recharge your cell phone. The exhibit also features a link to the website for the Media and Technology Charter School (MATCH) in Boston. Access live information on the energy produced by the solar array installed on the school roof. Information@mos.org Exhibit Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 solar,,energy,,power,,solar,power,,alternative,energy,,solar,cells,,photovoltaic Katharine Lane Weems (1899-1989), a Boston-born artist, donated her collection to the Museum of Science to demonstrate the many connections between science and art. There are 30 bronze sculptures of animals displayed in this exhibit, and the Museum of Science has the largest Weems collection in the world. During her 70-year career, Katharine Weems broke away from the twentieth century social standards for women to become one of the most recognized animal sculptors of her time. She carefully observed the anatomy and behavior of the animals she sculpted. Knowing the shapes and locations of each animal's muscles, bones and tendons allowed her to sculpt more realistic animals. Some of Katharine Weems' much larger sculptures can be viewed in other parts of the Boston area. Weems created the Lotta Crabtree Fountain on the Charles River Esplanade, the Dolphins of the Sea at the New England Aquarium, and the Rhinoceroses in front of the Harvard Biological Laboratories at Harvard University. Information@mos.org Exhibit Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 weems,,animals,,scuptures,,library,,bronze