November 15, 2011
Look at this great image from Vienna, in Austria. My stepdaughter, Jules, who is a college student studying abroad this semester, sent it with this note:
"At the Natural History museum in Vienna (a converted Hapsburg Palace) they had scientific stained glass! Of course, I thought of you."
Thanks, Jules. I love it! Look at the replica of the sea anemone, the delicate glass sculpture with many tendrils, like a flower, hanging from the ceiling in front of the window. Isn’t it just magnificent?
I decided to learn more about this museum, and discovered that it is the third-largest natural history museum in the world, after New York’s American Museum of Natural History and London’s British Museum. I love natural history museums, probably because when I was a teenager, I was the President of the U.S. Junior Astronomy Club, which had its office in the basement of the American Museum of Natural History. I spent many hours there, wandering through the exhibits, and I’ve loved natural history museums ever since.
One of the main attractions of Vienna’s Natural History Museum is their newly just-opened, modernized dinosaur hall. And I discovered that they have made a very exciting CGI animated movie that includes a life-sized animated model of an Allosaurus and a recreation of the giant asteroid impact that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs! The film is on YouTube and I’ve put a link to it here because I think my readers will like it as much as I do. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Photo: Jules KellyPosted by: Seymour Simon
