Word: smithsonian
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...wider understanding of this transfer of knowledge from the New World to the Old should by fostered by the Smithsonian Institution's "Seeds of Change," the largest exhibition ever mounted at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington. Opening Oct. 12 and running through April 1993, the Smithsonian exhibit sets forth five "natural" elements -- sugar, disease, maize, the potato and the horse -- the exchange of which has profoundly altered both the New and Old Worlds in the 500 years since Columbus' first voyage...
...ecosystems and how to restore them, and to create a self- sustaining environment that could serve as a model for space stations or colonies on other planets like Mars. Colossal and romantic, the project has attracted the participation of scores of researchers from august institutions, including M.I.T., Yale, the Smithsonian, Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens and the University of Arizona's Environmental Research Laboratory...
Every industrial revolution starts with a great notion. In the Smithsonian Institution, resting only a short stroll away from Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, is a newer icon of American ingenuity: Stumpjumper, the first mountain bike. A crossbreed of rugged utility and European racing technology, the Stumpjumper scurried where 10-speeds would have crumpled: down mountain slopes, across fields and over city curbs. The chunky two-wheeler, manufactured by Californian Michael Sinyard in 1981, has helped transform the % U.S. bicycle industry from a sleepy business to a $3.5 billion family-sport industry as millions of Americans mount...
...bondage photographs made the right wing snort and paw the ground. But the left has its own kind of puritanism lately, which submits depictions of the human body to a test of political correctness. A 1964 work by Sol LeWitt failed the test of Elizabeth Broun, director of the Smithsonian's NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART in Washington. LeWitt's piece -- part of a touring show of work inspired by the 19th century photographer Eadweard Muybridge -- is a long black box with 10 portholes. A viewer passing from one to the next sees successive shots of an advancing naked woman...
...greatest threats to human lives may come from overlooked, long dormant volcanoes. To monitor a volcano requires identifying it beforehand; as recently as 1981, Pinatubo was not even included in the worldwide registry of volcanoes maintained by the Smithsonian Institution. "When a nice little hill covered with lush vegetation finally wakes up," observes Smithsonian volcanologist Tom Simkin, "it's going to cause a lot of damage." Fortunately, scientists were able to see that some nice little hills in the Philippines and Japan were turning nasty while people still had time to get away...