Guest blog by Chris Darling, Senior Curator of Entomology.

Combining aesthetic beauty and history, this work cleverly and poetically combine references from historical Sri Lankan decorative art alongside meanings that resonate with issues of inequality, injustice, and the exploitation of natural resources during Sri Lanka’s colonial past. Written by Deepali Dewan.

Living birds may have their ancestors' beaks to thank for surviving the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs.  New research indicates the closest relatives of modern birds, the small feathered raptor dinosaurs and primitive toothed birds, went extinct abruptly at the end of the Cretaceous Period, and that beaked birds may have benefitted because of their ability to eat seeds. This study is the newest to shed light on how some animals may have survived the massive meteor impact and subsequent ecological turmoil that ended the reign of the dinosaurs.

If family albums are understood as social artifacts, rather than simply images, perhaps their vulnerability towards dehistoricization and aestheticization can be overcome. Written by Aliya Mazari.