Alexander McCall Smith has been celebrated for his lead female detective and recently the Library of Congress celebrated him for his work. The associated display included early female detective works of fiction, comic books, and also the flora and fauna of the setting of Smith's famous The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.
It's hard for the raven to shake the association to doom and gloom found in literature, religion, art, vocabulary (e.g. raving mad), and legends- and it doesn't help their case that a group of them is called an 'unkindness' of ravens. There is so much more to the raven than omens of bad luck.
NASA's Dr. Rowland will talk about atmospheric escape, his adventures in Norway, and what is being learned from the VISIONS-2 data in his lecture, Exploring Our Escaping Atmosphere: Going above the Top of the World to Watch the Sky, on Thursday, October 17, from 11:30 a.m.-12::30 p.m. in the Madison building's third floor Pickford Theater.
On Tuesday, October 15, and Wednesday, October 16, 2019, between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., the Library of Congress Science and Business Reading Room will pair fiber art quilts with our October reading room book display Obscure and Endangered. The book display highlights lesser known endangered plant and animal species, ranging from the Goldstreifiger to the Jellyfish Tree.
On September 12, NASA Astrobiologist Jennifer Eigenbrode presents "A Mud Matter: The Recent Discovery of Organic Matter Preserved in 3-billion-year-old Mudstones on Mars," at the Library's James Madison Building's third floor Mary Pickford Theater from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Whitman's poem "To a Locomotive in Winter;" first appeared in print February 19, 1876 in the New York Daily Tribune as part of a preview of the volume Two Rivulets (1876). Published just seven years after the union of the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, Whitman's poem "To a Locomotive in Winter" considers the dynamic relationship between the railroad and nature.
There is scarcely any subject that has so many practical and scientific aspects as the subject of color (Henry LeFavour, Elementary Color, 1895:p1) There are many ways to study color*. We can trace the history of color pigments, the development of color chemistry, the effect of color on our psyche, and the perception of color. …
Pluto has become one of our most favorite bodies in the solar system, perhaps gaining increased appreciation after it was demoted from a full-sized planet to dwarf planet in 2006 and thus decreasing our solar system planet count to eight planets. A significant portion of Pluto’s mass is icy material and so it is often referred …
Today’s guest blog post is by science fiction and fantasy author Fran Wilde, who will be visiting the Library on Dec. 3 to talk about “Flights of Fantasy and Fact: Man-made Wings in Literature and History”. Wilde is also a technology consultant and former engineering and science writer. Her short fiction has appeared in publications …