by Monica Amarelo

In 1992, a mysterious package was delivered to the National Museum of Natural History containing an unsigned letter and an enormous, milky crystal skull.

On display for the first time, the 31 pound Smithsonian skull dwarfs
the crystal skulls on view at the British Museum in London and the
Musee du Quai Branly in Paris.

Is this one of the legendary 13 Aztec skulls? Does a mystical healing energy emanate from this crystal object? Does it come from Atlantis?

Smithsonian anthropologist Jane McLaren Walsh thinks not. She began
her investigation soon after the milky quartz skull arrived at the
Smithsonian. She identified modern stone-carving tool marks and
determined that the skull couldn’t have been carved before the mid-19th
century. Instead, she believes the skull was manufactured in Mexico
around 1960.

Is this really a story of New Age hype? Or could there be some truth to the skull’s mystique?

The crystal skull is on display in the ground level of the Natural History Museum through September 1st. The museum is open until 7:30 pm daily thru the Labor Day weekend. Why not head over there after work
and check it out for yourself.

Cross post at DC Metblogs.

Posted on July 17th, 2008 by Monica
Filed under: Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian, archaeology, science | No Comments »

Read the language that creates the National Center for Learning Science and Technology Trust Fund here.

WASHINGTON — On 7 February 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve the Higher Education authorization bill that includes a provision for creating a National Center for Learning Science and Technology Trust Fund. This not-for profit center, which will receive both appropriated funds and support from private sources, will “support precompetitive basic and applied research, development, demonstrations, and assessments of prototypes of innovative digital learning and information technologies as well as the components and tools needed to create them.”

FAS is deeply grateful for the leadership of Congressmen Yarmuth, Regula, Kennedy, Markey, Pickering and many others. They recognized the importance of this research and exercised the leadership needed to make it a reality. FAS and the Digital Promise project have worked together closely for several years to encourage the kinds of research authorized in this legislation.

Simulations, software capable of tailoring responses to individual users, user created web content, and many other tools have led to productivity gains in the U.S. economy. Game designers have managed to find ways to focus users’ attention for hours while they try to acquire the skills and information needed to achieve their complex objectives. The U.S. military and many corporations are making use of these tools to improve the way they deliver training. The nation’s education system, however, has been slow to adopt them.

The blunt fact is that it is not easy to develop new instructional systems using these powerful technologies. Private investors have found it difficult to justify the kinds of deep, sustained, long-term research needed to discover how best to use them. The research supported by this bill will change that. By bringing together experts in educational theory, teachers, computer scientists, game designers, subject matter experts, and many others the bill has the power to drive dramatic improvements in the nation’s educational system – improvements that will be celebrated by teachers, parents – and most importantly the students themselves.

The House bill will now go to conference with the Senate, where many members have indicated their strong support.

Posted on February 8th, 2008 by Monica
Filed under: FAS, education, news | No Comments »

FAS has recently been awarded a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

FAS partnered with SRI International to undertake a strategic planning process for advancing scholarly work in the humanities with the tools, representations, and social interaction enabled by the promising new technology of virtual worlds. The will also support and facilitate this project.

FAS and SRI, with support from the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, will convene a series of 3 invitational summit meetings in 2008 that will bring together distinguished humanities scholars with experts in online communities research and virtual world technologies to identify how virtual world technology can be used to address significant issues in humanistic scholarship and advance scholarship. The findings from these summits will frame and inform further work to design, build, and populate a prototype virtual world, and evaluate its impact on advancing humanistic scholarship, scholarly communication, and learning.

Posted on December 12th, 2007 by Monica
Filed under: FAS, news releases, science | No Comments »