A shot from Karmela’s trip to The Bone Museum, New York Karmela Padavic-Callaghan
Have you ever found yourself spending a Saturday morning staring at a wall covered in human spines? Or, maybe, staring into the eyes of a newly discovered reptile? Recently, I had a chance to do both, as my best friend took me to visit and , which are conveniently located down the hall from each other in an unassuming building in New York鈥檚 Bushwick neighbourhood.
The Bone Museum boasts the largest collection of human osteology displayed to the public in the US. In fact, the 鈥渟pine wall鈥, which immediately drew my eye as we entered, is the biggest collection of human spinal columns on display in the world. The museum offers a fascinating insight into how conditions like gigantism and diseases such as syphilis can change and deform bones, as well as affect how they are preserved. It also focuses on the medical bone trade, offering a somewhat macabre look at its history and answering modern-day questions such as what exactly you should do if you find a skeleton in your attic. The Bone Museum is open to donations, and even displays letters from past donors.
Karmela made a new friend on their trip to The Gecko Gallery – a Standing’s day gecko Karmela Padavic-Callaghan
At The Gecko Gallery, there is a lot more oooh-ing and ahh-ing, as visitors peer into glass enclosures full of rocks, twigs and plants to look for some of the several dozen geckos, skinks and chameleons living there. We saw a dark blue psychedelic rock gecko, a critically endangered species that was only discovered in 2010 on a Vietnamese island. There were also several greyish-brown monkey-tailed skinks, which eat greens, like to climb trees and sport triangular heads that make them look like tiny dinosaurs, plus a whole colony of jittery neon day geckos that ran around their enclosure flashing their scales in stunningly bright teal and lime green, among many other creatures.
The Gecko Gallery is involved in efforts to preserve rare reptile species, and the staff there talked about it knowledgeably and enthusiastically. As a physicist, I was happy to learn that some of the animals we saw stick to vertical glass panes thanks to van der Waals forces between the tiny hairs on their feet and the slippery surface, which are a quantum phenomenon. But what made me happiest was when I was allowed to handle a gecko and a small, green Pethiyagoda鈥檚 crestless lizard that goes by the name of Blue Bean scampered up my shoulder.
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