Ashley D'Souza

The museum is hosting events throughout the month ranging from an exploration of human evolutionary history to a celebration of all things amphibian

This May, the National Museum of Natural History is ringing in warmer weather with events exploring everything from amphibians to volcanoes as well as a deep-dive into how scientists study early human history.

At less than two inches long, the tiny, warty Blanchard’s cricket frog may look unassuming at first glance. But museum specimens of this small species have had an outsized scientific impact.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — When Ann McDonald went kayaking several weeks after a 2024 rainstorm, she thought the water in the Alewife Brook just outside Boston was safe. Even though sewage discharges into the brook during heavy storms, public health officials recommended waiting just 48 hours after rain for bacteria levels to drop — so when McDonald’s kayak got stuck in debris, she wasn’t concerned about dipping her arms into the water to free herself.

Mark your calendar for all things bison as the museum celebrates the nation’s 250th anniversary with a spotlight on the national mammal.

As the first woman curator of the National Museum of Natural History’s collection of amphibians and reptiles, Doris Cochran shaped herpetology at the museum and beyond.

Smithsonian researcher Sarah Johnson studies bison specimens to understand how the species’s genetic diversity changed after its decline.

A grassroots effort to save nightjars shows that the future of conserving elusive birds depends on citizen science.

With bird populations in steep decline, weather radar provides insights into when and where birds migrate and how to prevent collisions.

Environmental justice reporting can be emotionally heavy and hard to swallow, but “there are some really uplifting stories,” the KSJ Fellow explains.

One research group in Boston is using local materials and accessible methods to restore marshland and protect the coast against intensified storms — but funding delays put their work in jeopardy.

Audio journalism story about the science behind Miyawaki mini-forests and a mini-forest planting event in Brookline. Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

There’s a new way to measure how well AI understands a scientific domain, according to one lab at MIT — and the results show that AI has a long way to go.
A paper by researchers at MIT’s Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems suggests that current evaluation methods don’t test AI’s actual ability to understand science.

This summer, the Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE) launched a pilot program to study cavity-nesting bees to learn how to bolster their declining populations. Biologists installed 65 bee hotels — wooden blocks built with nesting cavities — on farms in the Lake Champlain region, then monitored which species checked into the hotels and how they responded to various pesticides...

As a queer person doing their best to survive the past few months of political chaos, I’ve often turned to nature — specifically, wild animals — for guidance.