Sky VR’s interactive museum visit deserves a bigger audience

Sir David Attenborough first lent his silky narrator's voice to the medium of VR when he teamed up with London's Natural History Museum for a special exhibit on the earth's prehistoric oceans. And now, several years later, the institution and Sir Dav...

David Attenborough’s hologram will help you study fossils in VR

Sir David Attenborough is no stranger to VR. The beloved naturalist and TV presenter has worked on immersive, look-where-you-like films for the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London, the American Museum of Natural History and Google. Now, the docume...

A digital ‘totem’ leads the way in one of New York’s oldest museums

Museums, for all the wonders they contain, have a reputation for being staid and musty. At their worst they've even been described as mausoleums. That's a problem when it comes to exhibits about an active, living culture like the Haida people of Brit...

A rare fossil and a duck skull make an appearance at the AMNH

A nine-year-old girl patiently looked on while a technician pulled up a scan of her specimen. A 3D skull with a pointy beak popped up on the computer screen. The child, wearing clear frame glasses and a light grey tee with a sequined star on the fron...

Armchair Darwinians discover new insect species on Flickr

Armchair darwinians discover new insect species on Flickr

Entomologist Shaun Winterton has discovered a new species of Malaysian Lacewing from the comfort of his computer. Idly browsing Flickr, he came across Guek "Kurt" Hock Ping's snap of an insect taken while hiking in the Malaysian jungle, which bore an unfamiliar black-and-blue pattern along its wings. When his colleagues couldn't identify the markings, he realized he was staring at a new species and hurriedly emailed the photographer -- who, a year later, had captured one of the elusive creatures. Sent to Simon Brooks at the Natural History Museum, the suspicion was confirmed. The armchair explorer named it Semachrysa jade after his daughter and promptly used Google Docs to co-author the paper with Guek and Brooks on opposite ends of the world. If your mom complains that you're spending too much time on your computer, you can tell her you're searching for strange life-forms and old civilizations with a straight face.

[Image Credit: Guek "Kurt" Hock Ping, Flickr]

Armchair Darwinians discover new insect species on Flickr originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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