Dear subscribers,
Is your family in town? Are the kids on school break? If so, take some time this holiday season to visit the museum and explore the wonders of nature. Please note that the KU Natural History Museum will be closed to the public from Monday, December 23, through Wednesday, January 1, due to KU's campus closure. But don't worry, the museum will reopen on Thursday, January 2, with its regular operating hours.
For those looking for the perfect holiday gift, consider a present that inspires! For as little as $60 for a household and $15 for KU students, you can gift a KU Natural History Museum membership to a loved one, allowing them to enjoy membership perks all year round. Plus, if you sign up for a membership between December 3-8, you will receive a FREE museum tote bag. Keep scrolling to see a picture of this stylish bag and learn more about this limited-time offer.
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Sincerely,
Natalie Vondrak
Communications Coordinator
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Members' Night: Exploring Research-based Exhibits
Saturday, December 7
5:00-7:00 PM
KU Natural History Museum | Dyche Hall
Enjoy an evening exploring the natural world with hot chocolate and cookies, and celebrate the grand opening of our newest exhibit, “Fossil Mammals from Turkey!” This event for museum members will be an opportunity to gain in-depth access to several research-based exhibits and BI/NHM scientists. Registration is required.
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Curating Collections: Botany
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Did you know there are over 10 million biological specimens and 2 million archaeological artifacts in the Biodiversity Institute's worldwide collection? And each one has a story just waiting to be shared with you!
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Whitetinge sedge, KU Botany
Almost all of the half million botanical specimens at the University of Kansas were collected after 1870 when Professor Francis Snow and his students began building the herbarium and other research collections now housed at the Biodiversity Institute. However, one notable exception is this whitetinge sedge (Carex albicans), which is our oldest plant specimen. It was gathered between 1812 and 1822 by the great American botanist Lewis David von Schweinitz (1780–1834) and acquired in an exchange with the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences in the early 1960s.
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KU Mammalogy hosts Field+Genomics Workshop in Ecuador
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KU Mammalogy led a Field+Genomics Workshop in Ecuador as part of the Museums and Emerging Pathogens in the Americas (MEPA) Network. Participants from Latin America learned field methods in mammalogy and how to generate genomic sequence data in real-time using Nanopore sequencing.
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Open-source software, Symbiota, becomes part of KU BI/NHM.
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Symbiota, which sustains over 1,800 collections and 90 million global occurrence records, is now part of the KU BI/NHM. The merger coincides with the arrival of Director Nico Franz, who serves as the principal investigator for the Symbiota Support Hub. The team supports over 60 Symbiota portals and will soon add a new portal for the National Science Foundation-sponsored "cryptoNITE2" project, led by the University of Texas at Austin and focusing on the diversity of Indo-Pacific coral reef fishes.
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Optimizing semiconductors for neuromorphic computing
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A joint project between the University of Kansas and the University of Houston will produce atomically tunable memory resistors, dubbed “memristors,” for brain-inspired advanced computing. Part of the project includes education and outreach components led by BI/NHM's Teresa MacDonald, Eleanor Gardner, and Carolyn Kocken.
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Thank you to our members and donors!
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As a Friend of the KU Natural History Museum, your support makes a big difference by helping us bring events, exhibits, and research to our community. Together, we're celebrating the wonders of life on Earth and inspiring others along the way. Not a member? Join here!
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The museum's education and outreach team finished off their 2024 programming schedule off strong with a Pop Up Science event about the fascinating world of microbes. The team hosted five Pop Up Science programs in 2024 and saw around 470 visitors throughout the event series.
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Staff & Student Spotlights
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Stay up-to-date with current activities and events by following us
on your favorite social media channels.
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The specimen showdown between KU Mammalogy and Ornithology has begun! From December 1-13, the divisions will participate in a friendly competition to see which group can prepare the most specimens. Follow us on social media to find out who the winner is later this month!
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Please welcome Christy Imel, our new Assistant Director for Development! She holds a bachelor's degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and an MBA from KU. Plus, she's a lifelong Lawrence resident with strong community ties, making her an excellent fit for the BI/NHM!
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Ichthyology Collection Manager Andy Bentley presented at the final 2024 Science on Tap event with a talk on how we use natural history collections as tools to understand interactions between fauna and their environment.
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Postdoctoral researcher, Chan Kin Onn, was invited to the University of Bern in Switzerland last month to give a talk for their lecture series on ecology and evolution. Chan shared his genomic perspective on cryptic species which are species that look the same but are genetically different.
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Exhibit Developer Laura Mohr suited up to check on the museum's observational bee hive living in the beloved Bee Tree exhibit. Before the cold weather arrives, our exhibits team provides the bees with sugar water and winter patties, rich in carbohydrates, to help boost the colony when flowers are not in bloom.
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Save the date for One Day One KU
Join us for a virtual fundraiser on February 20-21, 2025 — from noon to noon. This year, KU BI/NHM is raising funds for the care and maintenance of its live exhibits, which include live snakes and anoles, a paleo garden, an observational bee hive, and Bugtown. Additionally, this year's donations will support scholarships for school education programs.
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