What About the Wildflowers?
In a warming climate, researchers have found—with a little help from naturalist Henry David Thoreau—that regional wildflowers are in danger of declining. By studying detailed observations by Thoreau, who painstakingly tracked plant life near Massachusetts’ Walden Pond in the 1850s, Carnegie Museum of Natural History botanist Mason Heberling and a team of conservation biologists determined that climate change is causing spring wildflowers to bloom one week earlier than they did 160 years ago. Trees are producing leaves two weeks earlier. Primarily due to human activity, temperatures in Concord, Massachusetts, have warmed by 5 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century. And as temperatures continue to get warmer, the critical window of time between wildflower emergence and the trees above them growing leaves will likely shorten, leaving wildflowers less time to photosynthesize in the spring. “Combining our work with Thoreau’s data revealed an overlooked, yet critical, implication of how our changing climate is affecting native wildflowers,” Heberling says.
“Here you are at the Buhl Planetarium. Now, the stars you’re about to see aren’t movie stars (some people call me a movie star), but these are profoundly large, brilliantly hot masses of gas and plasma (well, some of that does describe me).”
– Film actor and Pittsburgh native Jeff Goldblum, who recently recorded a message that now greets Buhl Planetarium guests before shows
This summer, there’s more time to explore at the Oakland museums!
In response to visitor feedback, Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History will be open until 8 p.m. on Saturdays this summer, starting in June (excluding July 13, 27, and August 3). That includes The Café Carnegie and stores, too.
“If you could walk into the painting Deer in a Pine Forest by Gustave Doré, would you walk left or right around the tree in the clearing?” asks artist Ruth Root in the “Looking + Drawing” gallery guide she created for Carnegie Museum of Art.
Gustave Doré, Deer in a Pine Forest, ca. 1865, Gift of the family of Tillie S. Speyer in her memory
The Chelsea Girls Exploded
Andy Warhol, The Chelsea Girls, 1966. Pictured: Nico/Ondine © 2018 The Andy Warhol Museum. All rights reserved.
In 1966, Andy Warhol’s epic double-screen film The Chelsea Girls premiered, offering the world a glimpse into Warhol’s Factory and the infamous New York underground of the 1960s. Earlier that year, after shooting several films featuring his Superstars and friends, Warhol got the idea to unify all the pieces of these people’s lives by stringing them together as if they lived in different rooms of the Chelsea Hotel. The 12 reels of film were shown with two projectors so that two different reels could be viewed side by side. Now, visitors can rediscover this radical filmmaking process in The Chelsea Girls Exploded, a new Warhol exhibition showcasing the film and its influence on cinema and popular culture.
Receive more stories in your email
Sign up