There’s more to Boston science museums than the Museum of Science or the New England Aquarium. Here’s a look at a few others.
Caitlin Stier
Warren Anatomical Museum: The dead teach the living
Not for the faint of heart, the Warren Anatomical Museum recounts medicine’s gruesome history by showcasing primitive medical instruments and various specimens that were used in the education of physicians at Harvard in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On display are various medical curiosities, including Phineas Gage’s skull (and the iron rod that penetrated his frontal lobe), bloodletting devices, a skeleton of conjoined twins, and what is believed to be the first ether inhaler. Artifacts, photos, and specimens tell the stories of unfortunate patients who suffered through their physicians’ blunders but helped advance medicine along the way.
Housed on the fifth floor of Harvard Medical School’s Countway Library, the collection is small and, due to its venue and gallery format, feels more like a diversion for library patrons rather than a true museum. Nevertheless, the material presented has sufficient breadth and impact to vividly convey the nature of medicine a century or two ago.
Countway Library of Medicine
10 Shattuck St.
Boston, MA 02115
Hours: Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m., except Harvard University holidays
Admission: Free
Arnold Arboretum: A botanist’s playground
Billed as a recreational park and an educational and research facility, the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain consists of 265 acres of beautiful grounds, all open to the public. The Harvard-affiliated Arboretum displays its outdoor collection well—each tree or plant is labeled with its species name, place of origin, and accession date—but the indoor exhibits fall short on science. Research projects on plant biodiversity involving Arboretum scientists are under way around the world, but they aren’t well described for visitors. The exhibits instead focus more broadly on the history of the Arboretum and the importance of plant studies.
The Arboretum is home to a large herbarium, where more than 100,000 plant specimens are stored and studied, but the descriptions in the exhibits are too brief to get across exactly how these samples are used by scientists. A light microscope and some pinecones, bark, and leaves are also on hand, but there is little guidance on how to operate the microscope and what to look for in the samples.
This graceful katsura tree overlooks a meadow near the Arborway entrance of the Arboretum.
The arboretum is really a live, open-air museum, so visitors will find their time better spent actively exploring trees and plants on the park’s grounds rather than perusing the indoor exhibits.
125 Arborway
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Hours: Weekdays 9 a.m.–4 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m.–4 p.m., Sundays 12 p.m.–4 p.m. (visitor center); grounds are open from sunrise to sunset. Free guided tours are offered throughout the year.
Admission: Free
Harvard Museum of Natural History: A scientific time capsule
At the newest exhibit at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, called “Nests & Eggs,” visitors get a rare glimpse into the sheltered nurseries of birds. Through real specimens, microscope slides, and re-creations of a variety of nesting areas, visitors learn about the numerous ways birds care for their young. The engaging exhibit surveys a wide range of colorful eggs, from a tiny hummingbird egg to a massive one from the now-extinct elephant bird. It also focuses on particular species, including penguins, which fast in order to keep the egg warm inside a flap of skin just above their feet, and parasitic cowbirds, which abandon their young in the nests of unsuspecting neighbors. This exhibit is showing until March 2008.
Visitors to the Nests & Eggs exhibit can see this kiwi bird and its egg, which is a fourth of the size of the parent bird. (Credit: Adam Blanchette, Harvard Museum of Natural History)
From there, visitors can explore other museum displays on everything from botany to climate change. More than just glassed-in taxidermy and bottled specimens, some of the displays cover recent developments such as the 2004 discovery of Tiktaalik roseae, the 375-million-year-old fossil of a fish that moved on land. This surprisingly modern and diverse museum is sure to please children and scientists alike.
26 Oxford St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
Hours: Daily 9 a.m.–5 p.m.
Admission:
$9.00 Adults
$7.00 Seniors, college students
$6.00 Children 3–18
Free to Harvard ID holders and museum members
Free to Massachusetts residents on Sundays 9 a.m.–noon (year-round) and Wednesdays 3 p.m.–5 p.m. (September–May)