Ankara Natural History Museum

On a recent trip to Anakara, we visited the Natural History Museum (MTA Genel Müdürlüğü Tabiat Tarihi Müzesi).

We were greeted by dinosaurs at the entrance

Guarding an egg or playing ball?

Inside are plenty of fossils, models and taxidermy exhibits of all sorts of creatures

Pseudofusulina fossil, a type of marine creature

Also a large collection of different rocks and minerals

Purple Jade

Saving the beach with beer bottle recycling

I have recently seen media like this from Tom Scott about how the world is running out of sand.

So it is refreshing to know that New Zealand's DB Export is recycling beer bottles into sand. 

Thunderbirds Are Go

Over the weekend we saw several Thunderbirds Are Go episodes on a TV cartoon channel. I remember the original Thunderbirds were puppets and I thought the remake was all CGI. I am happily surprised to see this behind the scenes today talking about the amazing "bigature" sets created for the show.    

Globe making

Earlier in the year I glued together a papercraft lunar globe from Canon Creative Park.

Recently I've been thinking about making my own earth globe, but after watching this video it doesn't look easy. The time and skill required is amazing.

[Spotted on http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/08/handcrafted-globes/]

If you are looking for a very simple sun or moon papercraft project, try this Pixelpapercraft Sun and Moon.

Natural History Museum, Stuttgart

We visited the  Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart during our summer holiday.

The museum has two exhibition buildings in Rosenstein park. We only visited the Museum am Löwentor, which contained items from prehistoric times including amber complete with captured insects (like in Jurassic Park) and fossils and reconstructions of cave bears, dinosaurs, mammoths, people and other land and sea creatures.

Geological Museum, Copenhagen

On our recent trip to Denmark, we visited the Geological Museum in Copenhagen.

Along with displays on geology, highlights for us included a collection of meterorites and a collection of minerals that change color under ultravoilet light.

A fascinating exhibit is the "All things strange and beautiful", original objects from Museum Wormianum and The Royal Cabinet of Curiosities. In the early years of the 17th Century, physician, Ole Worm created one of the first museums in the world with his collection of natural specimens from around the world.