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- NEW YORK - Like art
museums, museums that are home to dinosaur bones, historic space ships
and other things scientific have expanded onto the Net. Along with hours
of operation, current exhibitions and other information, many of these
institutions have put parts of their collections online.
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- The Smithsonian Institution runs the biggest "bricks
and mortar" U.S. collection of museums, and its online galleries,
based at http://www.si.edu, are nothing to sneeze at. The institution's
National Museum of Natural History, for instance, offers online exhibits
at http://www.mnh.si.edu/museum/online.html that can keep you glued to
your chair for hours.
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- The exhibitions include a virtual tour of the Washington
museum; "Crossroads of Continents," a fascinating look at the
native peoples of Siberia, Alaska and the Yukon; "In Search of Giant
Squid;" and "Portraits of Smithsonian Science," on research
based at the museum.
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- One of the most interesting exhibitions is "Earth
Today," which offers near-real-time satellite images of things like
cloud cover, city lights and vegetation from far above the planet.
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- The Air and Space Museum's Web site " http://www.nasm.si.edu
" is chock full of material, including photos and descriptions of
the museum's collections of historic aircraft and spacecraft and selections
such as "Star Wars: The Magic of Myth." The "Star Wars"
exhibit, which explores the George Lucas movies and the mythology behind
them, closed in January but remains online.
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- New York's American Museum of Natural History offers
"The Butterfly Conservatory " Tropical Butterflies Alive in Winter"
at its Web site (http://www.amnh.org). You can take a virtual tour of the
conservatory, read about butterflies, check out a butterfly Web cam, view
butterfly video clips or download butterfly "wallpaper" for your
computer.
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- Like the National Museum of American History, the New
York museum offers Internet visitors a peek at many of the physical exhibits,
as well as a chance to sample previous exhibitions, such as "The Endurance
" Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition," "Sacred
Arts of Haitian Vodou" and "Epidemic! The World of Infectious
Disease."
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- San Francisco's Exploratorium (http://www.exploratorium.org)
is known for innovative ways of making scientific topics fun as well as
educational. Its online exhibits include presentations on optical illusions,
frogs, the science of baseball, solar eclipses and the 1989 Loma Prieta
earthquake, which occurred during a World Series game in San Francisco's
Candlestick Park. There's an online guide to dissecting a cow eye, with
links to "eye sites" that include one you can go to if you have
trouble getting cow eyes to slice up.
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- The Exploratorium's online Learning Studio is in four
languages " English, Spanish, French and Italian " giving more
kids access to the material. The museum's Web site also includes regularly
updated "cool" science links.
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- Other science museum sites: * The Field Museum of Natural
History (http://www.fmnh.org) " The site for Chicago's famed museum
offers "Sounds from the Vaults," which lets you "play"
samples of music from a Nicaraguan clay flute and other exotic instruments
from the museum's collection. The site also contains a look at "Sue,"
the largest Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton being prepared for exhibition at
the museum next year. * Boston Museum of Science (http://www.mos.org)
" This museum's includes online exhibits and activities on how humans
and animals communicate, Leonardo da Vinci and climbing Mount Everest.
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