Category: Personal series (Page 12 of 35)

by columnist Catherine Sigmond

If you’re like me, sometimes the demands of work, school, and life get in the way of actually visiting new museums.  This week, I had the sinking realization that despite my best efforts, I couldn’t remember the last time I visited a new science museum or exhibition. What’s a busy museum professional to do?

I sat down and put together a list of local science museums, exhibitions, and events that I want to visit in the near future. Most of us here in Boston have been to the Museum of Science, but there are plenty of other great places in the area where you can check out interesting science-themed exhibitions and programs.

While it’s by no means exhaustive, these top my short-list of must-see local science events, exhibitions, and museums to visit this fall: Continue reading

by Cira Brown

by columnist Kacie Rice

Stone bridge at the Middlesex Fells Reservation.

This weekend, after a busy and stressful few weeks of moving apartments and starting classes, I decided to go old-school and explore the original science museum: the nature reservation! I put on my boots and went to unwind in nature with a hike in our very own forest, the Middlesex Fells Reservation in Medford. I often find that short day hikes allow me to take on the role of John Falk’s “spiritual pilgrim,” though on this occasion, I found myself more of an “explorer” as I found new trails to discover. The Friends of the Fells, a nonprofit preservation group, maintains a website with various trail maps, where I found a map and PDF guide for the Spot Pond Brook Archaeological District Self-Guided Tour, a 0.8 mile loop that passes through former mill settlements in the Virginia Wood forest. Interested hikers can download the guide, which gives background information on eleven different sites marked with numbered posts along the trail.

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by Catherine Sigmond

If you haven’t been paying attention to what’s been happening in Fukushima, Japan, recently, let me summarize the current situation: after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered a triple meltdown- the only incident other than the Chernobyl disaster to earn the highest rating of 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. Since then, the constant pumping of cold water to cool the reactors has contained the meltdown. However, this process generates hundreds of tons of radioactive wastewater each day. There’s increasingly less space to store this contaminated water, and last month it was discovered that around 300 tons of it had leaked into the ground. The crisis, which in recent months had been bumped down from its initial rating of 7 to 1, was just increased to 3. In other words, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what to do, and the situation is nowhere near being resolved.

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