Royal Ontario Museum Blog

Monthly Archive: December

Three Questions with Cyrus Sundar Singh

Posted: July 20, 2011 - 13:35 , by ROM

Popular imagery of India is often full of bright colours that create vibrant landscapes. Taking a closer look it becomes clear that not only are India’s many forms of street art a huge source of these aesthetics, but also that they are changing. Canadian filmmaker Cyrus Sundar Singh, enchanted with the hand-painted billboards apparent on the Indian streetscape since he was a child, has made a documentary looking at where these billboards come from and what is happening to them.

Three Questions for Prashant Kadam

Posted: July 19, 2011 - 14:48 , by ROM

For a long time, bioscopes have been a part of India’s bustling landscape, an aspect of childhood that came and went as bioscopewallahs travelled through the country. Bioscopes are an early movie projector taking the form of a wooden box, the interior of which has pictures that can be viewed through four circular holes. Bioscopewallahs are the people who would make their living by them, setting up temporarily and offering them as entertainment to children.

Summerasaurus Part I: Digging for Dinos

Posted: July 19, 2011 - 09:45 , by royal

Mark Farmer recently returned from an expedition to the far end of southern Alberta with Dr. David Evans, Associate Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the ROM, in search of dinosaurs! Join us over the course of the next month as Mark and Dr. Evans put up their notes from the field, detailing discoveries, how dinosaurs are found and excavated, life in the field and more.

Dawn Probe to Rendezvous with Asteroid Vesta!

Posted: July 15, 2011 - 11:29 , by royal

By Brendt Hyde, Mineralogy Technician

Our solar system is a very busy place! Aside from the 9 (no, make that 8!) major planets and their moons, there are 5 dwarf planets, 3 massive asteroid belts containing tens of thousands of smaller irregular bodies, and an untold number of comets.

Five Questions for Noah Cowan

Posted: July 14, 2011 - 11:00 , by ROM

Fun fact about the TIFF Bell Lightbox: its Artistic Director started out as a box-office volunteer. As a teenager, Noah Cowan volunteered for the relatively young “Festival of Festivals”, now the Toronto International Film Festival. Since those humble beginnings, he has started Midnight Madness, founded the Global Film Initiative, curated major retrospectives on Indian and Japanese cinema, started a production company, been a film critic, Co-Directed TIFF and became Artistic Director of TIFF Bell Lightbox- but not exactly in that order.

From the Field: Southern Alberta Dinosaur Project 2011 – Visitors!

Posted: July 13, 2011 - 11:10 , by royal

July 6-8: Visitors

These past few days we have had some welcome visitors to Camp. First, some of our colleagues from the Montana State University and the Museum of the Rockies joined us for a day on July 6th. They are working the same series of rocks just a few kilometers south of us in Montana, and wanted to see what we are finding and where we are finding it on this side of the border. We also had a reporter from the Toronto Star join the crew to see ROM dinosaur field research first hand.

From the Field: Southern Alberta Dinosaur Project 2011 – Found a skull!

Posted: July 11, 2011 - 17:47 , by royal

July 3, 2011: The South Side Ceratopsian Quarry

A tortoise by any other name is…a new species.

Posted: July 11, 2011 - 13:47 , by Cathy Dutton

In 1861, American Physician and Naturalist James Graham Cooper described a new species of tortoise from the deserts of California, and a 150-year mystery began. He named this new discovery Agassiz’s Land Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), but the name was changed some years later to Desert Tortoise. Fast forward 140 years later to a review that was published in 2002 on the conservation of the Desert Tortoise and the status of existing populations. It summarized evidence that Gopherus agassizii was not a single species, but was actually two to four species.

From the Field: The Tell Madaba Archaeological Project…Crusader castles, ancient cities, and desert valleys!

Posted: July 9, 2011 - 13:08 , by royal

By Daniel Kwan, Gallery Facillitator and Volunteer

From the Field: Southern Alberta Dinosaur Project 2011

Posted: July 5, 2011 - 14:58 , by royal

We are back again in southern Alberta, to continue our palaeontological survey and excavation of the Milk River region and adjacent areas. This blog will document how this field season progresses, and will report on any new and exciting dinosaur discoveries from the field!

June 28, 2011: Home Sweet Home