Showing posts with label museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label museum. Show all posts

Fake Cat Mummy Puts Pressure on WA Museum

Anthropology: Cat mummy in Western Australian Museum a fake.
It is known that ancient Egyptians made counterfeit mummies, particularly of birds and cats who were given as offerings to the gods. In 1982 an X-ray of a cat mummy showed that it was a fake, probably made in the early 20th century. Staff of the Western Australia Museum who were custodians of the "mummy" were shocked and disappointed by the discovery.

A recent CT scan of the "mummy" highlights a human femur broken in the middle then molded to take the shape of a cat. The scan has been sent to Cairo for further study. To solve this problem once and for all a determination of its real age needs to be done. Why waste time looking and re-interpreting?  The WA Museum is still so ashamed of the issue that is has never released a photo of the fake cat mummy nor will show the X-ray or scan to the public.
Genuine fake cat mummy from Saqqara in Egypt
Genuine fake-cat mummy from Saqqara in  Egyp
Genuine mummies are on display today at the WA Museum with the Afterlife: Magic Mummies and Immortality in Ancient Egypt exhibition brought over from the British Museum. Let us hope that tests to verify age has been done on these ancient wrappings.
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Beetles Attack South Australian Museum

Australians have a fear of termites that will destroy their assets, namely their houses. Your home is the most valuable thing you have. Termites creep up on you. You are not aware that they are there until the serious damage they do can be seen. Some houses have to be literally rebuilt.

At the South Australian Museum, however, it is beetles who are doing the damage. Carpet beetles are attacking everything they come into contact with. The valuable insect collection is being destroyed very quickly. Something has to be done, so the state government is going to spend $2.7 per cent on cleaning up the roof space of the Science Centre where the infestation began. Unfortunately, there is no money designated to protect the insect collection.

If the beetles cannot find anything to eat they consume each other. Dead insects in the museum's collection are the ideal food. Insects have been stored in wooden cases for 150 years. In world terms the large array of insects is very important. Scientists come from all over the globe to use the specimens for research in medicine, genetics, biodiversity, biosecurity, taxonomy and climate change.

Fortunately, something can be done to protect the collection. Specimens can be put into cold storage in deep freeze, or kept in perfectly sealed crates specially made for them.
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Science
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"Crocodile Headed" Dinosaur Found in Australia

A dinosaur with a head remarkably like modern crocodiles has been found in Australia. It didn't walk on all fours though. It stood upright on two legs like a T.rex. In the Cretaceous 146 million years ago they wandered over most of the Earth. This is the first time they have been found so far south.

It seems this group of dinosaurs, spinatosaurids, were really mobile. This find confirms that all dinosaurs travelled long distances populating great area of the planet. The fossils were overlooked since they were found in the 1990s. Paul Barrett of the Natural History Museum London was examining samples at the Museum of Victoria. He noticed that the vertebra was the same as Baryonyx walkeri a long clawed spinatosaurid found in Europe.

A new look at other dinosaur specimens showed examples in old Gondwana which included Australia and Laurasia, so millions of year ago different species of dinosaur lived alongside each other right across the globe. At the end of the Cretaceous the land mass separated and species began to differentiate much more because of isolation.
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Science
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New Seahorse and Coral Found in Australian Waters

Two new species have been found in Australia in the Coral Sea near the Barrier Reef. Atolls were explored by a team from the Queensland Museum and the University of Queensland. In the dark depths adjacent to the atolls a new pygmy seahorse and coral were found. They are not really new: they have always been there. The depths were surveyed with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV).

The seahorse, Hippocampus denise, is native to the Coral Sea of the Indo-West Pacific. It was not know to exist in Australian waters. The tiny seahorse usually lives in shallow water not at depths which sunlight does not reach. They may be going deeper to avoid damage to coral from climate change.

In regard to the new coral, Echinomorpha nishihirai, perhaps the larvae are safer in this zone. They could be acting as seeding areas to repopulate shallower zones. La Niña has damaged many of these. Many more new species are expected to be identified in the ongoing research.
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Science
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