At Wesleyan University
Fossilisation is nature’s way of preserving traces of once living organisms, humans too have devised ways to intervene with decomposition and to preserve life in a more predictable and accessible manner. We are a species of control freaks. The business of science in the 1800s was to collect and classify all known life on the … Read more
The Joe Webb Peoples Museum of Natural History is thrilled to welcome the seminar presenter for the Summer Research in the Sciences programme at Wesleyan – Dr. Warren D. Allmon. Aligning with our current mission of resurrecting Wesleyan’s natural history collections, Dr. Allmon was instrumental in the rejuvenation of the Paleontological Research Institution’s (PRI) internationally-known … Read more
As the Spring comes to an end, we celebrate the fruitful school year that has passed by, once again a little too swiftly. For us at the Joe Webb Peoples museum, nothing is more suitable for this time than to showcase the spectacular specimens that we have been restoring, as well as the exhibits … Read more
Birds are a unique group of creatures. They don’t seem to quite fit the bill for any other major group of animals with which we are familiar. They are warm blooded, but don’t suckle their offsprings like mammals. They lay eggs, but have feathers instead of scales like reptiles. They don’t swim in the water and … Read more
Driving along the highways of Connecticut, many don’t realise that the rocks by the side of the roads holds a looking-glass to one of the most famous times in geological history – the Jurassic Period. The natural landscape of the Newark and Hartford Basins in Connecticut, as it was about 200 million years ago, would … Read more
The results of our ‘name Glyptodon‘ contest are in, and she will be called: ‘Shelley the Glyptodon‘. Here we want to share the many creative and inventive suggestions made, and thank you all for participating, by suggesting names or voting for your favorite, as well as for showing your appreciation for our own Wesleyan Shelley the … Read more
We are excited to welcome Melanie McCalmont to Wesleyan. Melanie McCalmont is a geographer and data scientist. She has a Master’s degree in Geography, and a Master’s degree in Life Science Communication, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Melanie is the national expert on historic 3-dimensional relief models. She has been a relief model consultant to … Read more
The labyrinth of tunnels beneath the carefully manicured landscape of Wesleyan has inspired the imagination and indulgence of many generations of students. There is always something about the Forbidden that beckons. Yet there is one secret that our campus holds to which many may not be privy to. Above Level 6 of Exley Science Centre … Read more
Science was not like it is today in the 18th and even 19th century: things people used to do in science at that time – not too long ago -may appear very odd to us. In Wesleyan’s collections lie several keystone artifacts to this rather fascinating episode in history. Before science (as we consider it now) existed, … Read more
Working with fossils, it’s not difficult to think that science is often stranger than fiction. Wesleyan’s new star – our Glyptodon – is something that defies our every expectation of an armadillo. With her domed carapace, exquisite scutes and odd bone projections on her cheeks, she looks like a creature from a science fiction film. Another … Read more