AMNH Exhibit To Showcase Advanced Imaging Technologies, Opens June 25

Picturing Science: Museum Scientists and Imaging Technologies, an exhibition of more than 20 sets of striking large-format prints, showcases advanced imaging technologies used by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and reveals once-hidden, intricate details of both natural phenomena and cultural artifacts. The exhibition, which opens on Saturday, June 25, in the Museum's second-floor Akeley Gallery, features images that were created in pursuit of scientific knowledge but also resulted in visually arresting art. It explores how such imaging technologies-including infrared photography, scanning electron microscopy, and computed tomography (CT)-make it possible to examine and analyze a range of specimens and phenomena at levels of detail previously unimaginable, advancing science and providing new insights into the visual splendor of the universe.

"When science and technology come together, the fruits are often beautiful and surprising, as this new exhibition so brilliantly demonstrates," said Ellen V. Futter, President of the American Museum of Natural History. "New imaging tools allow us to present anew the intersection of science and art-both vital lenses through which, separately and increasingly together, we can better understand the world around us."

"Cutting-edge technology is increasingly important in ensuring that our research across multiple disciplines remains on the leading edge of science, and the Museum has assembled the latest innovations in scientific analysis and imaging," said Michael Novacek, senior vice president and provost for science at the Museum. "These technologies can provide extraordinary new insights into the millions of specimens held in our extensive physical collections."

The exhibition curator for Picturing Science: Museum Scientists and Imaging Technologies is Mark Siddall, curator in the Museum's Division of Invertebrate Zoology. The exhibition will be on view through June 24, 2012.

"There is a nexus of aesthetics and science that too often goes unstated by us scientists to the public," said Mark Siddall, curator of Picturing Science and curator in the Museum's Division of Invertebrate Zoology. "This is a unique opportunity for researchers at the Museum to share their personal fascination with what they see in the course of their research."

The images in Picturing Science were taken as part of current research at the Museum, including studies of evolving supernovas, long-buried ancient villages, microscopic hairs on wasp antennae, biological fluorescence, and more. This exhibition features the work of 27 Museum scientists, students, and staff from the Divisions of Anthropology, Invertebrate Zoology, Physical Sciences, Vertebrate Zoology, and Paleontology, as well as from the Richard Gilder Graduate School. The images in this exhibition were produced with a range of optical tools and equipment, many of which are housed in the Museum's Microscopy and Imaging Facility (MIF), which provides Museum research staff with opportunities to use advanced imaging technology.

The images featured in this exhibition were produced with tools including:
· Computed tomography (CT) scanners: To see inside a fossil, Museum scientists use a specialized CT scanner, a sophisticated x-ray imaging device. Acquired by the Museum in 2010 with a grant from the National Science foundation, the GE Phoneix V/tome/x Dual-Tube CT Scanner is one of only four of its kind in the country. CT scanners take thousands of x-ray images of a rotating object to digitally produce 3-D images of an object's interior from the resulting data. When John Flynn, curator in the Division of Paleontology and dean of the Richard Gilder Graduate School, and colleagues investigated the internal structure of the fossil skull of a 20-million-year-old Chilecebus (Chilean monkey)-the only one ever discovered-cutting it open would have irreparably damaged the specimen. Instead, the researchers used the high-resolution CT scanner to peek inside. They were able to study the shape of the head's semicircular canals, which help to control balance and reflect how animals walk, and to discover the creature's small brain size, which proved that monkeys living today in Central and South America evolved large brains only after their ancestors migrated from Africa.

· Scanning electron microscopes (SEM): Using magnets for lenses, these instruments sweep a high-energy beam of electrons across an object's surface. The electrons reflect off the surface, and the resulting image can be displayed with magnifications up to 500,000 times higher than visible light allows. Scientific assistant Nadine Dupérré uses the SEM to view goblin spiders in minute detail. This detailed study allowed Museum Curator Emeritus Norman Platnick and Dupérré to define two new genera, or groups, of spiders: Niarchos and Scaphios.

· X-rays: Passing into and even through objects, x-rays are captured by a film or digital camera to produce images of an object's interior. Museum conservators Judith Levinson and Karl Knauer use x-rays to investigate the condition of artifacts, including Tibetan deity figures, to determine their condition or how they were made. In the case of the wooden figure, the x-ray revealed previous repairs and ritualistic objects, known as consecration items, placed in a cavity within the body.
· Electron microprobes: These instruments are used to determine the chemical make-up of a small sample by scanning its surface with a beam of electrons. Each chemical element in the sample produces x-rays of a different wavelength. Associate Curator Denton Ebel, a Museum meteoriticist, uses an electron microprobe to excite the atoms on the surfaces of meteorite samples to produce data that reveals their mineral composition. Previously, sections of specimens had to be sliced off and pulverized to conduct such analysis.

· Confocal laser scanning microscopes: These instruments illuminate microscopic detail by focusing a laser light beam from an optic lens onto an object one point at a time. A camera detects fluorescent light reflected from each of the focal points, while the out-of-focus regions are blocked. From the collected data, computers assemble a 3-D image of the object, showing in great detail its surface and any parts within it that possess fluorescent properties. Museum entomologist and curatorial associate Christine Johnson used a confocal laser scanning macro photography microscope to observe differences in the internal features of plant bugs, which are notoriously difficult to distinguish based on external features.

Other methods used to produce the images featured in this exhibition include ultraviolet fluorescence imaging, which is used by Museum arachnologist Lorenzo Prendini to distinguish among species of scorpions; simple clearing and staining, used by Museum ichthyologist John Sparks to study fish structures such as the cichlid's unique hearing structure and the ponyfish's bioluminescent chin and remote sensing, which guides the work of Museum anthropologist David Hurst Thomas and his team on excavations of structures called "shell rings." Built by early native peoples of the southeastern United States, these structures date back nearly 5,000 years and are among the oldest known in the region. Thomas and his team used topography, density, electrical resistance, and magnetic properties in tandem to analyze these sites and, ultimately, learn about the people who created them.

Museum scientists and staff featured in this exhibition are Phillip Barden, doctoral candidate in comparative biology, Richard Gilder Graduate School; Douglas Brenner, research scientist in the Department of Astrophysics; James Carpenter, curator in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology; Nadine Dupérré, scientific assistant in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology; Alex de Voogt, assistant curator in the Division of Anthropology; Denton Ebel, associate curator in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences; John Flynn, dean of the Richard Gilder Graduate School and curator in the Division of Paleontology; David Grimaldi, curator in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology; David Gruber, research associate in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology; Christine Johnson, curatorial associate in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology; Karl Knauer, assistant conservator in the Division of Anthropology; Neil Landman, curator in the Division of Palentology; Judith Levinson, director of conservation in the Division of Anthropology; Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, curator in the Department of Astrophysics and chair of the Division of Physical Sciences; John Maisey, curator in the Division of Paleontology; Jin Meng, curator in the Division of Paleontology;

Michael Novacek, senior vice president and provost for science; Ben Oppenheimer, associate curator in the Department of Astrophysics; Susan Perkins, associate curator in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology; Norman Platnick, curator emeritus in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology; Lorenzo Prendini, associate curator in the Division of Invertebrate Zoologist; Randall T. Schuh, curator in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology; Michael Shara, curator in the Department of Astrophysics; Mark Siddall, curator in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology; Associate Curator John Sparks, Division of Vertebrate Zoology; Edward Stanley, doctoral candidate in comparative biology, Richard Gilder Graduate School; David Hurst Thomas, curator in the Division of Anthropology; and James Webster, curator in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

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